Yamaha Test New Chassis in Catalunya

Vinales on Yamaha's new secret weapon?

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi were back on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya today to continue the development of new items for their 2017 YZR-M1. The teammates finished second and tenth respectively in the 2017 MotoGP Catalunya Test times.

Today the Yamaha Factory riders were each able to test one of the two new frames available. Tomorrow they will switch to get a feel for the other option.

After a challenging outing yesterday, Vinales was a man on a mission: he was one of the first riders to venture out on track again this morning and the last to return to the pit box as the session closed. His goal for today was to try one of the new frames as well as improve his feeling with the bike in hot conditions. Whilst consistently featuring at the top of the charts for most of the day, the Spaniard wasn't shy to put in 81 laps in total and set a best time of 1'44.437s on his penultimate lap to finish in second position, 0.366s off the front.

Teammate Rossi also made strides in the blistering Catalan sunshine. He started the day by setting the provisional fastest time of the session on his fifth lap, before it was time to switch his focus to the fine-tuning of his bike. The Doctor spent the day testing various settings along with the second new frame option and came back with positive feedback. After completing 71 laps, he ended the day in tenth place with a fastest lap of 1'45.635s, 1.564s from the top.

Following the progress booked today, the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team have decided to stay at the Barcelona circuit for one further day to conduct a private test.

Maverick Vinales
We tried many things today, many new set-ups and some different settings on the bike and I was feeling comfortable all day. I've been riding well, riding with a lot of confidence on the YZR-M1, so for me it was a good day. Overall for the test the feeling was really good, in the afternoon it was better with the very hot conditions and we completed many laps in the '45's and then '46's so I was quite happy.

Valentino Rossi
It was a good day of testing because we had a lot of interesting items to try from the Yamaha side and I think it was a positive day because we have learnt a lot about the bike and where we can improve. At the end, the feeling was better even if we have not yet solved all the problems. Tomorrow we will have another day, with some further test items so we will try to continue the work.

Massimo Meregalli, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team Director
After the challenging Catalan Grand Prix, it was good to have the opportunity today to test in similar conditions and we are satisfied with the amount of work that we got done. Today's main goal was to evaluate two new frames that we brought here to test. Maverick tried some different settings and a different frame compared to yesterday's race bike. He could ride comfortably with a good pace, even on used tires throughout the whole day. Valentino's focus has been mainly on testing the new frame, which gave him more confidence in the areas where he wanted to improve. Both new frames had some positive aspects confirmed by the riders and tomorrow they will switch frames between them.