Ya, I know. Just poking the bears..... AM really has nothing to do but go out there on the bike that just won everything and turn fast laps.
Took me a while to figure out what MM in the all red leathers was reminding me of, but it just hit me.
MM not living up to his fan boys expectations. I thought he was supposed to win every session by at least 0.5 seconds as soon as he got on the factory bike.
No sense in crashing his brains out on his first outing on the new bike, serves no purpose. Wait until it matters and then he will let loose.
I'm no MM fan, but to be fair, he finished the test right behind Pecco. Given that, I wouldn't consider MM's test a failure and who knows what he was/was not testing or prioritizing.
If you don't feed the trolls, they will wither away and die. Then what would we do for entertainment round here?
Testing times were not exactly blistering - AM topped the sheets with a 1:38.8 or something? 2 Tenths off Pecco's pole time and 7 tenths off the outright lap record by Aleix I think all under good conditions and a well rubber'd in track. I think Allen Iverson said it best regarding non-competition events....
@younglion True, but wasn't Alex's time also 0.4s faster than he had gone all weekend? Conditions were good, but track temp still not near optimal. My favorite part of that live segment was the two riders in the booth. Pol A. and Fabio D. were funny, insightful, and you could just hear them smiling the whole time. They love their jobs! -Tom
Honest question... is the objective of testing to go WFO the whole time? I'd imaging that being within a few seconds of a 90 second reference laps (+/-) is still rolling. And given the list of assessments that I imagine they're running through getting new riders happy w/ new bikes, I'd say that's a successful outing? Again, not an argument, just curious to hear how you'd approach it or what you were looking for in the test results?
Having never been asked to test anything motorcycle related other than tires, my opinion is rather uninformed, but... I'd expect testing to be as you say - ridden at a pace close to circulating times (race pace) but not knife edge, to ideally offer feedback on the changes you are being given - suspension, ergo's, gearing, torque maps, tire compounds, ride height devices, etc... Having said all that - usually these guys want winter bragging rights for the team and themselves, or to start the mental warfare early so it's common for them to throw in a soft tire, a smidge of fuel, and go out at the end of the day solely to lay down a flyer. Seems maybe the one guy with the least to prove (AM73) today did just that even though his team know him very well and he's not typically known for his mind games. Or, he just matches up really well with the changes to the GP24 vs his 23.