Monster Yamaha's Colin Edwards reckons the base setup he started the first Phillip Island MotoGP free practice session with was so far out of the ballpark, it was in the car park and had to ask Jorge Lorenzo's crew what settings he was using.
The Texan, who will be joined by Ben Spies in the Tech3 squad next year, found the Spanish Fiat Yamaha man was utilising a setup Edwards had tried at the Sepang test earlier this year.
“I went back to a geometry setting on the front that I haven't tried since we were testing in Malaysia right back at the start of the year. Honestly, I asked what Jorge (Lorenzo) has been running and they said it was the setting I'd used in the Malaysia test," said Edwards.
"So with it obviously working well for him lately, I decided to give it another go because I really liked it in testing. It's basically just taking a bit of weight off the front compared to what I've been running most of the season. At the start it didn't feel that great but we played around with some spring settings and the feeling was much better.
"This track is so fast that you've got to make the setting much softer and that's what we did. And it felt much better because once you've got a stable bike underneath you at this track then it becomes a piece of cake. But if the bike is set too hard then it makes it really difficult to ride with such a rigid feeling.
"I need to thank my guys at Tech 3 because in one hour we got through a lot of work this afternoon to get to where we ended up with the bike. Generally we show up and the bike is in the ballpark, but today we were still out in the car park waiting to get in. But my guys did an amazing job and we can still make it better tomorrow, so I'm confident we can have a strong weekend.”
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