Three weeks after the first Official Test at the Sepang International Circuit, Colin Edwards and NGM Mobile Forward Racing returned to confirm themselves as the best CRT team in Malaysia.
The weather conditions during the three days of testing were not as favorable as the first test at the beginning of February. However it was still an important test for the American rider in order to find continuity on the Suter-BMW as he completed a total of 78 laps with a final lap time of 2’03.681.
The work once more revolved around the electronics of the bike as well as on the development of the new Suter chassis. The chassis development has been a clear step forward, allowing Edwards to improve his best time at the first test by over a second.
Colin Edwards (2’03.681):
"To be honest, it was frustrating for two days and finally on the last day, we were working with the throttle connection and we found something. In that respect, it was a good test. In terms of the electronics I don’t think we will reach the final stage of development of the electronics until the last race in Valencia: we are going to be working on them the whole time. But as they say: "Rome wasn’t built in one day". It’s not a very quick process but at each test we keep improving, so that’s the key. We arrived with a new chassis and also a new spec engine. So from the first test to the second test to the third test, we’ve had basically had a new bike each time. This time we got what we would consider the 2012 spec. Yes, we do have a little bit of chatter but it’s much better than what it was and I believe we know how to fix it. For the next test in Jerez, I don’t have a main focus other than to make the entire package better. We need to come up with solutions quickly and efficiently and for that we need accurate information from our data…. we can’t afford right now to get off base".
Sergio Verbena – Technical Manger:
"We focused on the electronics and chassis. We tested the chassis with varying degrees of stiffness in order to solve the chatter problem and made some improvement in this area, but we have some more work ahead of us. In terms of the electronics we made significant progress in some areas (engine braking and traction control), but we still have a lot of work to do with exiting the corners, although we made a modification that allowed Colin to be 1.5 seconds faster. We are now at 3.2 seconds from Stoner, it’s not bad at all only after days of testing a circuit as long as Sepang!"
source: MotoGP Official
