A hot day kicked off the second official test of the 2017 Moto GP season with Suzuki Ecstar's new rider Andrea Iannone hard at work on the Phillip Island circuit in Australia.
The classification at the end of an intense day of work saw Iannone in third place overall.
Iannone's program continued from where he had left the bike in Malaysia, with the aim to double check the new specs introduced to the GSX-RR and verify the effectiveness of the direction that the engineers had taken.
Also, it was a chance for him to check the capability of the adaptation of the machine and set-up on a brand new circuit.
The day went on with different setting tests, as well as different configurations of the electronics, proceeding step-by-step as usual.
Despite the first part of the day seeing Iannone struggling with the feel of the bike, the modifications introduced in the second part of the afternoon proved to be effective and he posted the positive time of 1:29.926, pushing him into third place, +0.429s from the leader.
“This morning was very difficult for us,” he said. “The team couldn't find the proper setting to feel confident. I struggled a lot. But then in the afternoon, we changed some settings and improved step by step. At the final stage I was happy because the machine improved, as well as the feeling of the bike and the pace.”
“This is a very positive outcome, because it means we have the capability to overcome very hard situations and turn them into a positive. As of tomorrow, we have the chance to work on pace as well as single lap performance, and also introduce some more improvements. We are on a good path. My crew chief is as new as I am with the GSX-RR and it's very important for us to learn and get to know it at its best.”
