Lorenzo gets back to business at new Austin circuit

 In MotoGP, News

1432192252_1Yamaha Factory Racing were back on track today with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi enjoying their first ever Circuit of the Americas (COTA) experience.

The Yamaha riders were at the new track in Texas for day one of the three-day private test. The first sessions were dedicated to learning the track, both Lorenzo and Rossi focusing on understanding the complex 5.5km circuit which has 20 corners and an elevation change of over 41 metres.

Jorge Lorenzo
Position: 4th; Best lap time (at 3pm local time): 2:07.388

“I think it’s very important to come here and learn the track. I haven’t learnt 100% of it, I need more laps to learn my lines, but for the moment it’s a very beautiful track which is very complete with every kind of corner.

In the beginning it was difficult to understand the lines but I have improved 3 seconds from the first lap today, that means it’s a hard track to learn and a difficult track to go to the maximum on. I think it helps more than some other places to have this extra time. I think three or four practices before the race will not be enough to understand it so some of the riders who didn’t come here will have a little disadvantage.

The wind has been a little bit of a problem, especially on the longer straight where you arrive over 340km/h, you feel a lot of unstable feelings. Almost all the track is tricky, there’s some very hard braking and also tight hairpins. The first sector is flowing but it is very hard to find a good line because it’s blind.

We’re getting used to the track but also trying to solve a problem at maximum lean where we don’t have full confidence. We have to change the setting a bit to make it better. The tarmac is not perfect with only four bikes on it to clean it so it’s difficult to understand if it’s very grippy or not. It’s hard to know if it will be much better at the race weekend or just a little bit.”

Massimo Meregalli – Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director
“It was definitely a good idea to come here. The track is very difficult to learn, I think it is really special.

We are working hard to get a base setting but the most important point is for the riders to get used to the circuit. We’ve started with our base set up from Sepang and we’ll modify it for this circuit. We are on schedule and we will continue working until tomorrow night. If we gather all the information required then we won’t stay for Thursday.”

Source: Yamaha Racing Press Release

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