Stefan Bradl was joined by his teammate Alex Marquez in Portugal for the first MotoGP test at the Portimao circuit, both riders familiarizing themselves with the new track.
The Algarve International Circuit will debut on the 2020 MotoGP World Championship calendar as the final round of the series, November 20 to 22. Ahead of its debut, MotoGP test riders are running across two days to sample the new circuit on MotoGP machines. Stefan Bradl has previous experience of the track, having raced the Honda CBR1000RR in World Superbikes there in 2017 but today offered a first chance to ride the Honda RC213V at the Portuguese venue. The test provided Bradl a chance to refresh his memory of the track and begin to work on finding a base setting for the RC213V ahead of the season finale. Stefan ended the day with a best time of 1’41.726.
Alex Marquez joined Bradl on track, riding the Honda RC213V-S, to familiarize himself with the layout of the demanding circuit. The laps completed by Alex will help to give the rookie an initial direction to follow with bike setup and allow him to spend more time refining the setting of his Repsol Honda RC213V when the race weekend begins. After enjoying the dramatic elevation changes and a roller coaster layout of the track, Alex now turns his attention back to racing.
“It was a good day, good weather at a nice track with a good layout and new tarmac – it was nice to try it. The Honda RC213V-S was really nice to ride, everything was nice!” Marquez said.
“The layout is quite difficult, but I think the rider will be able to make a lot of difference here. I’m looking forward to returning here on the MotoGP bike at the end of the year, I think it will be an interesting race.”
“But right now, my attention is back fully on Le Mans.” he added.
Bradl will spend another day with the RC213V at the Portuguese track before heading to Le Mans for round 10 of the MotoGP World Championship. Alex is already on his way to Le Mans, motivated to continue adapting to the MotoGP class.
“It was a great day today with the weather, pretty much perfect conditions,” Stefan Bradl said.
“We followed our test plan after the track condition improved. This was an advantage to having a lot of riders there, the circuit was cleaned quite fast. The circuit is a great challenge, but you can really enjoy it with a MotoGP bike, the elevation changes are great,” he added.
“We were fast and completed our test plan for today and have a few runs tomorrow before heading to Le Mans.”
