Marc Marquez's 2017 MotoGP title defence starts here
- 7 years ago
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa are back on track for Repsol Honda as preparations for the 2017 MotoGP World Championship begin with testing in Sepang, Malaysia
Like team-mate Dani Pedrosa and fellow HRC rider Cal Crutchlow, Marquez was putting Honda's brand new engine through its paces, and comparing it to the '17 motor he had previously tested at Valencia in November.
Marquez found the new engine to be smoother in its delivery in low RPM, but said that improvement in feel was not evident on the time sheets. The reigning world champion was just over a second slower than pace setter Casey Stoner.
Still, the young Catalan was also adjusting the electronics – primarily engine mapping – to the engine's new characteristics, and hinted that there is clearly still more to come from both him and the machine.
“Today we worked a lot on the engine, on the electronics and still tomorrow we must work on this side of the bike,” said Marquez.
“The new engine is completely different so all the maps that we had for the other engine is not working on this one. Already with this standard map we are riding with the same lap time as the other engine.
“We still need to adjust well and also to maybe tomorrow we'll start to work on the set-up of the bike. It's important to understand many, many things like the wheelie. We already worked a lot in Valencia but here we need to continue."
On how the new engine differs to what he had tested before, he offered, “It looks like in the low RPM it's really different.
“With the gas it looks maybe smoother but then the lap time is similar. Still we have some problems on the exit of the corner, with the grip and things like that.
“Then on the straight it looks slightly faster but still the map is not working perfect. Then the up-shift of the gears isn't working well and we must understand what is the potential of the engine.”
http://bit.ly/2jOWnhq - Marquez: We know the problem, difficult to improve it
http://bit.ly/2kKp11B - LIVE MotoGP Testing with Crash.net on Twitter
Like team-mate Dani Pedrosa and fellow HRC rider Cal Crutchlow, Marquez was putting Honda's brand new engine through its paces, and comparing it to the '17 motor he had previously tested at Valencia in November.
Marquez found the new engine to be smoother in its delivery in low RPM, but said that improvement in feel was not evident on the time sheets. The reigning world champion was just over a second slower than pace setter Casey Stoner.
Still, the young Catalan was also adjusting the electronics – primarily engine mapping – to the engine's new characteristics, and hinted that there is clearly still more to come from both him and the machine.
“Today we worked a lot on the engine, on the electronics and still tomorrow we must work on this side of the bike,” said Marquez.
“The new engine is completely different so all the maps that we had for the other engine is not working on this one. Already with this standard map we are riding with the same lap time as the other engine.
“We still need to adjust well and also to maybe tomorrow we'll start to work on the set-up of the bike. It's important to understand many, many things like the wheelie. We already worked a lot in Valencia but here we need to continue."
On how the new engine differs to what he had tested before, he offered, “It looks like in the low RPM it's really different.
“With the gas it looks maybe smoother but then the lap time is similar. Still we have some problems on the exit of the corner, with the grip and things like that.
“Then on the straight it looks slightly faster but still the map is not working perfect. Then the up-shift of the gears isn't working well and we must understand what is the potential of the engine.”
http://bit.ly/2jOWnhq - Marquez: We know the problem, difficult to improve it
http://bit.ly/2kKp11B - LIVE MotoGP Testing with Crash.net on Twitter