Further improvement for Miller at Phillip Island

Further improvement for Miller at Phillip Island

Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Jack Miller enjoyed another successful day of testing at the Phillip Island circuit today, posting a lap time more than half a second quicker than his best from yesterday to finish 10th on the timesheet.

The second of three days of testing in Australia started in perfect conditions this morning, with Miller and his crew initially testing different geometry options on his Honda RC213V to improve front tyre endurance.

While the changes extended the life of the front tyre to a small degree they left Miller without the same feeling from the front that he'd had previously, so the Australian will switch back to the same set up he ran yesterday for the third and final day.

In the afternoon Miller moved on to tyre testing for Michelin. The French manufacturer brought with them to Phillip Island three revised rear tyres designed to offer better traction and stability and two new front tyres designed to warm up faster and provide more feedback to the rider.

Miller worked his way through all the rear tyre options this afternoon with positive results. The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider will evaluate the two new front tyres tomorrow before the traditional end of test time attack in the afternoon.

Jack Miller: 10th – 1'29.838 – 72 Laps
“We're all getting some graining on the left side of the tyre here, mainly because of the track temperature, so this morning we tested both bikes with revised geometry to try and alleviate this. There was some improvement but we also lost a little bit of cornering, especially in the tighter corners like turns two and four, so we'll switch back to the previous set up for tomorrow. Having said that I did a 1'29.8 on a bike I felt less comfortable on and with a full tank of fuel, so I'm reasonably happy with that. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to throwing in some soft tyres and pushing for a lap time on a bike that I felt really comfortable on yesterday.”

Ramon Aurin: Chief Engineer Jack Miller
“Here we had the front tyre from the race; normally the track temperature at the race is quite low, but now it's much higher so we're a little bit on the limit with the front. We made some geometry changes to try and save a little bit the tyre over race distance; it's quite difficult because 27 laps with track temperature around 40 degrees and soft rubber means the wear is high. But we have some experience now, something in the pocket in case we have a similar situation here in the future. We also tested the new rear tyres from Michelin and Jack was happy with some of the options they brought here. This is important for us because it gives an indication of the direction that Michelin will take for the 2017 season. The rigidity of the tyre has a big effect on how the bike works and we need to know how to modify the set up to get the best possible performance from the tyre.”