Positive feelings for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team, which ends the three days of testing at the Sepang International Circuit in third place with Fabio Di Giannantonio and seventh with Franco Morbidelli.
The official MotoGP test at the Sepang International Circuit concluded on a positive note for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team. Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli continued their work aboard their Ducati bikes, confirming the good feelings also on the final day of testing, which ended with the third sixth and fastest times respectively.
It was a positive Day 3 for Di Giannantonio, who continued testing the new items with an intense work plan both on track and in the garage. Only light rain in the early afternoon briefly interrupted his work schedule, but Fabio returned to the track for a late time attack. The rider from Rome completed 50 laps overall, with a best timelap of 1’56”785. This allowed him to wrap up the three days in Sepang with third place in the combined standings, confirming a Top3 finish for the third consecutive day.
Positive feelings also for Morbidelli, who continued working with the new package. A crash – without consequences – at Turn 14 in the early hours of the morning briefly interrupted his work plan. Franco returned to the track to complete the day with a time attack. The Italo-Brazilian rider completed 52 laps overall, setting a personal best of 1’57”130, which allowed him to finish Day 3 at Sepang in sixth place in today’s combined standings and seventh in the combined classification over the three days.
With the Sepang International Circuit test concluded, the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team will take part in the Official MotoGP presentation in Kuala Lumpur on 6th and 7th February. It will then be time to return to the track for the Buriram test, scheduled for 21st and 22nd February.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“I am really happy, I think we did a great test, my best so far in MotoGP. We were very consisent and we had with a solid pace, I worked very hard during the winter to make it like this, also physically I feel very good. Overall, the feeling has always been very good, I could improve a lot my best laptime here in Sepang, so it’s a big step and it was a great day. I am very happy both with the bike and with the thing Ducati brought. I tried two aerodynamic specs, making the same laptime with the same amount of laps and with the same tyres on both, so it’s harder to decide now, we will have to test them again in Buriram. We need a lot of time at home to analyze everything. But it was interesting also to understand my needs. We worked on the bike to improve a little bit the front, but the job made at home was enough already. We have a lot of information and data for the engineers, so I think that we will arrive ready for the last test in Thailand, where the goal is to confirm the things we tried here in Sepang.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“We had positive three days of working, we’ve been testing many things and solutions. I’ve been adapting to the new package step by step. I missed a little bit in the time attack, I could have done a bit better, but I made a mistake. Overall, it was a good test. I like the new bike, even if we still need to do some step forward. In the next test in Buriram, we will try to improve the rear grip: we’ve been working on that during this test in Sepang, we improved quite a lot, but we still need some improvements. We will chase that, and we will work more on refinings and details, such as electronics, small things on the setup to arrive prepared to the race in Thailand.”
