Last Monday, October 25th, we went to Valencia track again, this was the fifth time that the BOTT M210 has been lapping on a track, and probably we won’t train again till the next CEV race in Valencia circuit, next 14th of November. This will be our first race ever!.
This training was very important for us, first of all because until now we always trained using Dunlop tyres (the ones that are used in the World Championship) and this was the first time we tried the Michelins that we will be using in the CEV (Spanish Championship).
We also had two clutches to test. Till now we were using the standard CBR clutch, but with this bikes it well worth working with a good slipper clutch, with a good setting, because it can improve quite a lot the bike going into the corners. In that sense for us it is very important the experience of Jose Contreras, who has been working 8 seasons in World Championship, several of them in MotoGP. In the video below you can see him testing the clutch (we just had changed it) before the bike went back to the track again.
Testing clutch and gearbox in the box from Bottpower on Vimeo.
I was quite worried about the tyres. We planned to test them before but we could not do it because of rain, which forced us to cancel a training session we had scheduled for 12th of October.
Fortunately last Monday was sunny and we could test without problems throughout the day.
The set-up we chose for the Michelins worked pretty well from the beginning. Alex had no trouble adapting to these tyres and was gradually improving his laptimes. Alex work has a great merit because during all the previous tests he has been riding with the pressure of knowing that he could not fall (we didn’t have enough spare parts), and along the five tests he has run fast laptimes without any mistake. For the next two races we already will have enough spare parts, so Alex can risk a little more if he wants.
Like all riders he is a little freaky, when he is not riding the bike, he goes to the wall with the stopwatch to control his rivals.
At the end of the day he had made 62 laps with a best time of 1:39,7. Not bad if we consider that it was the first time we shot with these tyres. We left Cheste moderately happy, feeling that we are doing a good job, advancing step by step and smoothly.
In less than 3 weeks we will have our first race in Valencia. We still have to receive the final bodywork of the bike, a new exhaust and some other details. We will let you know.
You will find bigger size photos in our Flickr gallery.