Yamaha reflections from Sepang Test

2023 Sepang MotoGP Test
Yamaha

While the two Monster Energy Yamaha riders did have some back-up support from test riders Cal Crutchlow and Katsuyuki Nakasuga the bulk of the workload at Sepang rested on the shoulders of Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli.

While the top speed potential with the new engine has been promising, Quartararo finished the test a somewhat disappointing P17 and Morbidelli P20.

Massimo Meregalli – Monster Yamaha Team Director

“This test was very important for us. We had a lot of items to evaluate over the last three days. It was a shame that rain cut into our track time over the course of the Sepang Test. We worked as much as we could and gathered a good amount of data, but it has not been easy to evaluate all those items in a really short time. Fortunately, we could decide on the most important items that we needed to assess during this test. For other items, like some parts of the aero package and chassis, we were not able to decide on them here, and we will have to try them again in Portimão. We are happy with the improvement we have made in terms of top speed. But unfortunately we couldn’t finish the entire testing plan. The list of items to test was so long, and the dry track time was so short, that we weren’t able to get the job done entirely. We will now go over all the data that we couldn’t analyse here to prepare for the last and very important test in Portimão in March.”

Quartararo showed his typical determination and dedication on Sunday with 63 laps, the most of any rider, as he strived to gain data for engineers to analyse ahead of the next outing at Portimao.

Fabio Quartararo – P17

“I’m very happy with the top speed. This is something I asked for for a long time. We had many things to try, and I’m happy about that too, because we asked for this as well. Overall, the pace on used tyres is good, I’m feeling super happy, but we need to improve on riding with new tyres. Today, the feeling wasn’t great during the time attack. We will have a look at all the data and then have a think on how to ’reset‘ for Portimão. Let’s see if we can make a big step.”

Similar to his team-mate, Morbidelli used the final day in Malaysia to work on completing his testing programme as much as possible to help the Yamaha engineers gain further insights about the updated items.

Franco Morbidelli – P20

“So, finally, we ran through the aero options. We really needed to do that, and we found some interesting stuff that we will need to confirm in Portimão. We back-to-backed some other things that we needed to test consecutively. Finally, we also did a time attack, but that wasn’t so positive. So, we need to dig deeper on that side. We will work on that and arrive more prepared in Portimão.”

The team will now return to Europe whilst the Yamaha engineers in Japan process the testing data. The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team will regroup in Portugal from 11-12 March for the Portimão MotoGP Official Test.

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