Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Franco Morbidelli finishes 12th on the timesheet with teammate Tom Lüthi 20th in marathon session.

The warm and sunny summer conditions continued today for the test day following yesterday’s Catalunya GP with Morbidelli and Luthi completing a total 152 laps.

Franco Morbidelli focussed on improving rear grip and wheelie control and made big step forward with a time of 1’40.004 being 0.7s faster than his best race lap. His quick time came on lap 24 of the 70 he completed aboard his Honda RC213V.

Tom Lüthi was eager to maximise his track time to make up for his early exit from Sunday’s race and the Swiss rider completed a long session totalling 82 laps.

Lühti’s best time of 1’41.207 came on lap 61 and was 0.9s faster than his best race lap and he goes to the next race, the Dutch TT in Assen, with improved confidence.

Franco Morbidelli: 12th, 1’40.004

“The main work today was to try set-up options to understand the bike especially for rear grip and wheelie control. Both with the hard and soft tyre we found some improvement with rear grip. My pace was really good and my times were faster than the race so this was positive. I also tried the new front tyre from Michelin for next year and it was better in some areas but I prefer the current front tyre.”

Tom Lüthi: 20th, 1’41.207

“Today it was important to do as many laps as possible to get some feeling with the bike because I crashed early out of the race on Sunday. I did a lot of laps and concentrated on improving the feeling on the front-end, we were not going flat out for fast times, just building confidence and feeling so it was positive day overall. I think we now have good direction for the coming races.”