Just over two months have passed since the second of four pre-season tests ahead of the 2019 MotoGP season concluded. As Motorsport Monday goes to press, testing will resume on Wednesday with three days of running coming up at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.
This year, the majority of riders will have just six days of testing at their disposal – down from nine last year – before hostilities begin on March 10 in Qatar. This means even more emphasis will be placed on engine evaluation for four of the six present manufacturers, before the enforced development freeze comes into effect following the Qatar test two weeks from now.
One team who will be feeling the pressure from having three less days of running will be Yamaha, who is desperate to right the wrongs of its engine troubles of the past two seasons.
Yamaha has endured a busy winter. Kouji Tsuya – who famously offered his riders a public apology during a dismal Austrian Grand Prix weekend – has been replaced as project leader by former chassis division head Takahiro Sumi. Michele Gada, who was airdropped in late last season from the World Superbike project to work on electronics, remains.
Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales had two new engines to test in Valencia and at Jerez last November, though both quickly decided the initial new motor they ran on day one in Valencia was the better of the two.
Vinales ended the Valencia test fastest of all, and was just a tenth shy of top spot at the end of the Jerez outing. He was enthused by the progress the Iwata marque had made, even going so far as to say he is now in a position to be a title contender again. Teammate Rossi, who endured his first winless campaign in Yamaha colours last year, was less so.
Ending the Jerez test 11th overall, Rossi still does not feel the new engine is much of a step forward from the 2018-specification. This lack of unified opinion could be problematic if it persists.
Yamaha does at least have manpower on its side to balance out the current mismatch of position. Franco Morbidelli of the Petronas Sepang team will have the latest M1 at his disposal this year, and a fresh perspective could just be the ideal tonic for the manufacturer's engine problem.
Honda, on the other hand, will be a depleted and broken force. Reigning world champion Marc Marquez will not be operating at full capacity as he continues his recovery from a “complicated” shoulder operation in the winter. New team-mate Jorge Lorenzo will be absent, after breaking his left scaphoid late last month.
To add to this, factory-backed LCR rider Cal Crutchlow won't be playing much of a supporting role. Breaking his ankle quite severely at Phillip Island last year, three-time MotoGP race winner Crutchlow has not been on a bike since, and his Sepang test will be all about readjusting.
HRC does at least have official test rider Stefan Bradl on hand, who recently spent two days at Jerez with the World Superbike lot testing the RC213V and was present at the three-day warm-up outing for test riders at Sepang over the weekend. Honda does come to Sepang off the back of a very productive and very useful fours days of running last November, with the 2019-spec RCV making small improvements in almost all areas.
Last year's runners-up Ducati look in the best shape coming to Sepang. November's tests proved the GP19 prototype was a definite step forward from its predecessor, and it will look to hit the ground running on Wednesday with an extremely competent compliment of Andrea Dovizioso, Danilo Petrucci, test rider Michele Pirro and Pramac's Jack Miller at the helm.
Sepang, despite topping the January test there, proved a difficult venue for Ducati last season. So a strong showing on the timesheets may not be obviously indicative of its true form – though will nevertheless strike some semblance of fear into its rival.
Ducati's engine is arguably the best on the grid, and is now rumoured to be producing somewhere in the region of 300bhp. Whether that is true or not is inconsequential: crucially, it is an area it doesn't need to spend a massive amount of time on, therefore allowing it focus on fine tuning the chassis and general set-up of the bike.
The Italian marque's general manager Luigi Dall'Igna confirmed during the team's launch last month it would not be revealing the final version of his its 2019 aerodynamic fairing in Malaysia. It is likely few will, in a concerted effort to keep their cards close to their chest.
This testing phase will be crucial for Suzuki. Two years ago it arrived at Sepang with the goal of finalising engine direction for the 2017 campaign – its first without the benefit of concessions. Andrea Iannone's choice back then proved the wrong one, and meant the Hamamtsu marque was left making up for lost time last year.
A new engine tested in November was a definite step forward, as was the evolution made to other parts of the GSX-RR. Reconfirming this will be the first step towards moulding the challenger Marquez believes, in Alex Rins' hands, will be a title contender in 2019.
Aprilia has a similar need to avoid past mistakes, as it took a wrong turn with the RS-GP in testing last year and spent far too long in 2018 trying to figure out what went awry for Aleix Espargaro and Scott Redding. New signing Iannone highlighted new areas of the RS-GP to Aprilia for improvement during the Jerez test, and he was relatively upbeat about the base package. The engine came in for praise from the Italian, but it needs to punch out of the corners better and to stop forcing the bike to paw the air as it shifts through the gears.
Johann Zarco's initial transition from Yamaha to KTM in November was tough, but he was beginning to find confidence from the front of the RC16 at Jerez, which in turn allowed him to “play” with his body on the bike more and ultimately discovered more corner speed.
New team-mate Pol Espargaro was happy for Zarco to tear the RC16 to pieces and lay bare its flaws to the Austrian marque, as his KTM virginity would allow him to look at problems Espargaro had long adapted to. Zarco's lack of pace and his comments about the bike clearly struck a nerve, and KTM was forced into action by deploying early its new test rider and former Honda man Dani Pedrosa for two days of running at Jerez in late December. Along with the Aprilia duo, Zarco and Espargaro will be able to just launch into Wednesday's action having spun some laps during the shakedown over the weekend. To help add to its wealth of data, Tech3 duo Hafizh Syahrin and rookie Miguel Oliveira will have two 2019 bikes for the first time, while tester Mika Kallio is back in action.
As is the inherent nature of testing, much will be discovered without much being truly learned. However, the faint sketch of 2019's battle lines will start to reveal themselves.
