Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, Red Bull KTM Tech3 and the factory’s test crew used the excellent weather and diverse challenge of MotorLand Aragon to grab more data, information and ideas for refinement of the KTM RC16 today. The second one-day official test of the MotoGP season took place right after Sunday’s Aragon Grand Prix and Maverick Viñales, was fastest by the end of the session with the fastest ever two-wheeled lap of the circuit.
KTM’s MotoGP push has been making progress in terms of overall competitiveness through the eight Grands Prix so far and the first test at the Circuit de Jerez at the end of April. In the wake of Pedro Acosta’s 4th place finish at MotorLand on Sunday and with three of the four KTM RC16s making it directly through to Q2 as well as showing top five pace through the 23-lap GP race, the riders took to the Spanish asphalt again today.
Acosta, Brad Binder, Maverick Viñales, Enea Bastianini and Pol Espargaro combined circulated the 5km layout almost 300 times as they worked on chassis configurations, aerodynamic proposals and more theories for the future direction of the race bikes. The fastest lap-times from the long schedule of work placed Viñales in P1 with an Aragon milestone. The Spaniard hit the reference on his penultimate effort. Acosta was just three tenths of a second adrift and sat 5th on the day with Binder in P11 and Bastianini P15.
Maverick Viñales, Red Bull KTM Tech3, 1st: “Positive day and we worked very hard for improving the bike in terms of turning. We achieved this, and it’s a ‘plus’ for the next races. Now we need to understand if we will homologate this next aero package: I feel good with it but also with my standard one. We want to check and see. It was important today to keep at the same level and to keep riding and improving. I’m really happy with all the teamwork.”
Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, 5th: “Happy. Without trying any time attack we were quite faster than in qualifying last weekend. We touched a lot of the aerodynamic areas that we thought could help but it can be quite hard to understand this in just one day or with a few laps. Let’s see if we can develop more this week and the test team can also help. We have to be happy because the bike made a step.”
Brad Binder, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, 11th: “Today we ran though many aero configurations and it took time to get a sense of them all. We had some solutions that helped turning, some for more grip…each item changed certain areas. There was a lot between all four of us and now the test teams will go through it and will try to build each rider a package. Such a busy day throwing many things onto the bike so now we need that full check for the best options.”
Enea Bastianini, Red Bull KTM Tech3, 15th: “Many different aero options. This morning, I worked a lot with this, and I was satisfied because it helped us for wheelie, acceleration and a bit for entry of the corners. We tried something for the set-up in the afternoon but nothing really worked when I put the soft tire. Some things were simple, like the fairing, but we need more time with other things. Maverick was very fast today and I think we can be competitive like him but I have the same issue: with the old tire I can push and not with a new one.”
Aki Ajo, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team Manager: “For sure a busy day and many things to try but our test team is also working this week in Barcelona so we were able to experiment and make some priorities but then also file some others for later work. Quite a lot of aero, different downforce packages with a view to the second homologation phase, and suspension and, so far, some promising things. We need to analyze before making decisions for the future and we’ll close some short-term solutions as soon as we can.”
Sebastian Risse, KTM Technical Director MotoGP: “The end of another intense test and after the Grand Prix here in Aragon it’s clear we wanted to make another step and get the bike better quite soon. We were working mainly on the aero side and also some chassis components. We really tried to get a broad picture of many items through all four MotoGP riders and we achieved it. We found some positives. Now we need to analyze the data and see how we can put it together in the fastest possible time frame.”
Aragon official test final times
1. Maverick Viñales (ESP) Red Bull KTM Tech3 1:45.694
2. Marco Bezzecchi (ITA) Aprilia +0.006
3. Marc Marquez (ESP) Ducati +0.132
5. Pedro Acosta (ESP) Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +0.335
11. Brad Binder (RSA) Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +0.951
15. Enea Bastianini (ITA) Red Bull KTM Tech3 +1.411
21. Pol Espargaro (ESP) Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +2.340