Finishing second fastest on the second day of their final test of the year, Alex Lowe had a productive day around the Circuito de Jerez, praising his team for their hard work.
Returning to the circuit in which he had a solid weekend around this season, he began to work through their 2018 plan and notes some changes he has found with the 2018 regulations
. Working with the new rev limits for next season, the British rider comments that he has already began to adapt his riding to work around them, but is positive nonetheless.
With plenty more work on the cards on Friday, the British rider is hopeful of another strong day to end 2017 on a high. His lap time of 1.39.770 put him only 0.107s behind Melandri at the top, and he looks forward to a busy final day.
Lowes explained: “It’s going quite well, we worked really hard today and tried lots of different things. Obviously this is one of the main points of the test, to collect all the data to improve the bike over the winter.”
“Already we have made a couple of steps forward and it’s going to be an interesting last day tomorrow. One of the biggest areas I am working on personally is corner entry, as this year I was forcing the bike on corner entry, so I’ve been finding a few solutions to help me, but as a team there’s been a lot of new parts but we’ve been working a lot.”
“Today we used the new RPM, in this track there are a few corners where we need to make one extra gear shift up, so I had to get used to that and it will be interesting to see how this in on other circuits.”
Dutch team-mate Michael van der Mark has spent all his time out on track beginning to understand the new regulations with his YZR-R1, and has put in over 160 laps across the two days on track in Spain. His lap time of 1.40.199 put him in fifth position overall on track, and he is looking forward to his final day of 2017 on Friday.
Van der Mark explained his day: “So far I am really happy with the test, and we have been testing with the new regulations which for us have been quite positive, we are still working out what to do with the gearing but the first feeling is quite good for us.”
“Next year we have many electronic updates, we are trying many new things and a different system, we have a lot to do and I am really happy with the pace so far, but we have a lot more to test on the last day. Which I am really happy about, it’s a good thing to have so many things to test and you can go away in the winter and think about what is better or not.”
Regarding the final day, he adds: “We are testing set ups from last year back to back, we just have to keep the new regulations and try different set ups. I look forward to tomorrow, it’s the last day of the year riding and I still enjoy it after so many laps.”