KTM ‘had things to test in pretty much every area’

KTM spent Monday’s official Jerez MotoGP test working on the chatter (vibration) issues that arouse over the race weekend, as well as ‘experimentation’ with aerodynamics, suspension, ride height devices plus clutch and engine parts.

The aero work included a revised side fairing for Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta, with the South African finishing as the fastest RC16 rider in sixth place (+0.234s), after a time attack on his penultimate lap.

“Today was a quite a good day,” said Binder. “We had some aero packages to go through to collect some information and keep pushing that side of the project.

“A little bit with set-up and a different setting for the rear shock that made the bike a bit more stable, which is always great especially at a track like this with the change of direction.

“We focused on things we can use moving forward next week. With aero you can win in some areas and lose in others so it’s important to take the comments and the data and work on the benefits. Now we can leave here and put things together.”

Rookie Acosta was the next quickest RC16 and equal tenth on the timesheets with Jorge Martin (+0.488s).

“We tried a fairing and some different settings on our standard race bike,” said the GASGAS Tech3 rider, who also had a different air intake. “It was a good day. Our bike is tricky in some points and on fast tracks and we are really improving.

“We had a lot of grip here but the lap-times were slower than Friday. The weather changed a bit today, so it was tricky, but anyway, everything good.

“We changed parts but didn’t really have time to make many back-to-backs. The new fairing was very positive though.”

Jack Miller’s work was focussed on the vibration problems, but with no apparent breakthrough. The Australian was 17th fastest.

“We worked through a lot today. Played around with the bike a lot. We still need to tackle the vibration issue when the track has a lot of grip and when you make a lot of changes there are a lot of other effects, so we had to find the balance and I think we made some headway,” he said.

Acosta’s Tech3 team-mate Augusto Fernandez tried the front-fender wing on his way to 22nd place, after a late fall.

“We worked on the setting of the bike and to improve our feeling and we worked on many things. Honestly, I want to be faster but I’m not unhappy,” he said. “We discovered a lot. The way is closer and we are narrowing the target.

“I had a late crash and I’m sorry to the team for that but…it will come. I’m looking forward to Le Mans; it’s a track I like, and I hope we can have a good weekend.”

With Pedrosa taking a break after the race weekend, Pol Espargaro stepped in for test rider duties. Espargaro, who will make his first KTM wild-card at Mugello next month, was 19th.

“We had things to test in pretty much every area of the bike!” said KTM team manager Francesco Guidotti. 

“With our [race] riders we worked on the short-term competitiveness but Pol – and Dani this past weekend – were working on the mid-term.”

Technical director Sebastian Risse revealed that some ‘engine parts’ - outside of the homologation areas - were also on the agenda.

“We focused a lot on updates that we can still bring this year, which means the impending aero update but also other items like electronics, engine parts for even more performance and also suspension,” Risse said.

“We shared the test items around the group, so when we found something positive we could carry it over to the others to confirm. 

"It means we have a complete picture for the items’ performance across the riders and we’re quite positive it will have some effect in the next races.”