News

Weather hampers BMW test at Aragon

Friday, 31 May 2013 01:40 GMT
Weather hampers BMW test at Aragon

The BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team conducted two more days of testing at Spanish "Motorland Aragón" this week. Factory riders Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies mainly worked on the chassis and engine of their BMW S 1000 RRs. They were able to evaluate several settings and updated parts despite the fact that, unfortunately, weather conditions were not ideal in the north of Spain.


On Wednesday, rain showers often resulted in the track being wet. Thursday it was sunny but with very strong winds. The air temperature reached 16 degrees Celsius while the highest track temperature was about 25 degrees Celsius. In total, Melandri and Davies completed 263 laps or 1353 kilometres of testing on the RRs. Next week, the team will head to Portugal for the sixth round of the 2013 eni FIM Superbike World Championship which will take place from June 7th to 9th at Portimão.


Marco Melandri: "The weather made testing pretty difficult. Yesterday we had rain showers and today it was very windy, so we mainly worked on trying new ideas regarding the set-up of the RR. We found some improvements and I think that we now have a better understanding in which direction we need to go with the 17-inch tyre. But for sure we still have more work to do in order to further improve and to find the perfect set-up."


Chaz Davies: "Yesterday, we tried some basic things. Today we were hoping to do a little bit more but it was incredibly windy. We tried to test as best as we could with the high winds and in fact we found a couple of ideas which seem to help a little bit. We learnt a few things about the bike and about the new parts we had to evaluate. They appear to be promising. We also improved a little bit on the electronics for wheelie control. So overall it was a positive test, but I just wish that the weather had been a bit better."