Britain’s Scott Redding is riding with very little electronic help at the first Sepang MotoGP test in order to get a proper feel for the almost-works Honda RC213V he will campaign in this year’s championship.
The Estrella Galicia Marc VDS man says he still has a lot to learn with the bike so isn’t going for an out-and-out laptime at the moment. Redding says the bike is hard to learn to ride fast, so it is a bit-by-but process at the moment but he is happy with the progress so far.
“It’s a difficult bike to ride so I want to learn it, more difficult than the Open Honda. I don’t really know why, maybe it is because the rider ability is higher. We are missing half a tenth here, maybe a tenth there, there is nowhere it is half a second,” said Redding, speaking at Sepang.
“At the beginning, I was losing half a second at one corner, but I focused on that corner and now I am as fast if not a little faster. We are trying to learn a bit here, a bit there and the track conditions aren’t helping with the heat.
“I am happy with the progress, not running much in the way of electronics, throttle to hand so I know how much power I have got. It’s learning. New tyre in, try a lap time, learn. We haven’t played with the setup too much, we will make some changes tomorrow with a little more turn-in.
“What I have learned is that if you try and go fast with this bike, you go slower. I’m trying not to hang off so much as I did last year, bringing that in a bit which seems to be working alright. If you keep the rear down, you stop faster but then you see Marc, he is sliding on the way in but his apex is different. I’m not here for the laptime, I’m here to learn.”
Click here for the Sepang gallery
