[visordown.com] - Pedrosa claims tyres had almost no grip

[Ninjette Newsbot]

SOARING temperatures in Malaysia left Dani Pedrosa frustrated with Michelin after riders are left with the hard tyre option resulting in almost no grip.

A crash early on the second day of the Sepang test from Loris Baz on the Avintia Ducati saw action stopped for over an hour. As a result of his fall down the straight, Michelin withdrew the soft rear tyres at the test, leaving teams with just the hard option.

Most riders found this decision challenging as the hard rear was the only option remaining leaving them all struggling to find grip on the scorching Sepang track.

Despite the lack of grip, the Repsol Honda rider continued to assess the new evolution of the 2016 engine, but during an out-lap towards the end of the session Pedrosa suffered a fall at Turn 5 unhurt.

A time of 2:01.475 saw Pedrosa over half a second slower than team-mate Marc Marquez and down in 12th. Wednesday, the final day of the test, offers another chance for Pedrosa and Honda to improve.

Agreeing with the majority of the MotoGP field, Pedrosa said: 'It was a difficult day, because after the crash of Loris Baz this morning, we were told not to use the softest tyre. We had to use the hardest rear and, with the temperatures as high as they were today, we had almost no grip.

'We tried to use the time to improve the electronics, but it was very difficult to handle that and making improvements to the bike. We tried a different weight distribution, but in the end we weren’t able to draw many conclusions.

'We will see if tomorrow we can turn the situation around and improve. Unfortunately I had a crash towards the end of the day – probably because the tyre was cold, as I wasn’t riding fast.'

The final day of the Sepang test takes place at 10am local time tomorrow.



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