Yamaha Racing Valencia test notes 2007-03-19

Yamaha Motor Italy WSB riders Troy Corser and Noriyuki Haga each worked hard to find good base settings at a very windy but dry Valencia circuit, with Corser taking fifth fastest lap of the tests on his YZF-R1, with Haga just one place behind in the final ranking.

With the YZF-R1 an all-new machine this season, Haga and Corser still have many development parts to try out and after the experiences of the first two races of the year, each concentrated great efforts in matching machine set-up to tyre choice, to make rear traction last over full race distance.

In contention for fast times throughout, Corser also worked through new brake components and rated them an improvement, an important factor at a circuit with many turns and frequent braking points. Haga survived two crashesunharmed, but left knowing he still has to find an optimal set-up for Valencia0x2859s race weekend itself, in one month0x2859s time.

Team YZF Yamaha's Shinichi Nakatomi continued his never-ending cycle of development on his R1, testing new suspension parts and settings from Kayaba, and finding improvements through the test. He was 15th fastest overall.

Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team)
"We tried a few new links on the back of the bike and it has definitely made the bike better and easier to ride. It doesn0x2859t seem to matter which tyres we got today because none of them seemed to work over race distance any better than the others. We found an improvement in the mapping to improve the response in the midrange, even if it is still a bit too flat in that area. Overall the test was not so bad and we tried some different brakes and callipers as well - and they were better. We have a pretty good bike set-up around here, we just need to get the tyres matched up in terms of compound. I think everyone else is in the same boat."

Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team)
"I found a good front tyre here, but I cannot take too much satisfaction away from these two days. I tried a lot of different settings but this morning I had two crashes, one on the left side and one on the right side. We continued to work a lot on the suspension and the linkage but I could not find a really good feeling. The wind really did not help me as well. But I had good confidence with my qualifying tyres, better than in Phillip Island and Qatar races. But we still have a lot of work to do on the suspension when we get here for the race.0x2879

Massimo Meregalli (Team Coordinator - Yamaha Motor Italy WSB Team)
"We worked our way through a lot of different settings and links for the rear suspension at this test. Our main job was just trying to find a way to make things easier for the rear tyre, to make it last better over full race distance. We also had new exhausts on one of Troy0x2859s bikes for comparison with the previous system, as part of our development programme."

Shinichi Nakatomi (Team YZF Yamaha)
"I tried many new suspension settings on the machine in this test and some new parts. We worked a lot on suspension. We were looking for a base setting for the Valencia race and the feeling with the bike got better and better. We set the best lap time in the last session, even in the strong wind, so that proves that we made improvements."

-credit: yrc