Honda HRC Suzuka test - Day 2.

Repsol Honda factory tam riders Valentino Rossi and Tohru Ukawa ended the two-day HRC Suzuka test session on a high note. Both men slashed over second off their best times of day one.

In bright sunny conditions the two riders spent the entire day improving still further the traction and handling of the 5-cylinder 990cc four-stroke MotoGP machines they will race in the 2002 grands prix.

Repsol Honda factory tam riders Valentino Rossi and Tohru Ukawa ended the two-day HRC Suzuka test session on a high note. Both men slashed over second off their best times of day one.

In bright sunny conditions the two riders spent the entire day improving still further the traction and handling of the 5-cylinder 990cc four-stroke MotoGP machines they will race in the 2002 grands prix.

Fortuna Honda Gresini rider Daijiro Katoh was the fastest man of the day, riding the NSR500 V-4 two-stroke with a lap time of 2m 04.44s. The reigning 250cc World Champion is a Suzuka specialists who has won four 250cc grands prix at the 5.859km circuit.

"This was the first time we have tested the RCV on the modified Suzuka circuit (changes have been made to the Dunlop curve). Considering this I feel it was a very good test, with a good job done by everybody in the team," said Noriaki Nakata, HRC Team Manager. "We concentrated our efforts on tyre and suspension testing and I'm very pleased with the results we achieved, and the overall development of the RCV."

"Today was a good day for us, testing was much better than yesterday," commented Rossi. "Here at Suzuka there seems to be little difference between the four-stroke RCV and the NSR two-stroke. But I'm happy with my machine as we found better settings than we tried on the first day, particularly on the suspension. Now I'm looking forward to the final test here, just before the grand prix. I'm sure what we learned here will help improve the RCV still further."

"I'm happy with the results of the two day test," said Ukawa. "We worked quite hard on testing many tyres, then tyre and suspension combinations. We did so many laps today and the results were positive. The RCV development is definitely going in the right direction but there is little between the RCV and NSR, the two machines are well balanced here at Suzuka."

"My NSR500 was really good today," said Katoh. "Like everybody else at the test we concentrated on tyres and suspension to get the bike set-up before trying for fast times. My team did a good job for me and I'm very satisfied. I could not have gone faster with the settings we used. I'm still learning about the 500 but its not easy but and we will test here again before the grand prix, I'm ready for that."

Test times:

Valentino Rossi RC211V 2min 04.53secs 53 laps.Tohru Ukawa RC211V 2min 05.10secs 67 laps.Daijiro Katoh NSR500 2min 04.40secs 61 laps.

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