MotoGP rookie Danilo Petrucci got within 0.1sec of his pre-Jerez test target with the new Ioda CRT machine.
The only bike on the 2012
MotoGP grid to feature a steel trellis frame, design by Ioda, the bike is powered by an Aprilia RSV4 Superbike engine.
Although Randy de Puniet, riding the 'full' Aprilia ART machine, was 1.325sec ahead of Petrucci, the Frenchman's Aspar team-mate was only 0.281sec quicker.
“They have been three very hard days, but at the end I am satisfied with the result,” said Petrucci, who finished 15th out of the 22 riders, “I am the third Italian, the third CRT rider and I only missed my lap time target by 0.1sec. My target was to have a gap to the front of under three seconds.
“Today I tested different tyres and we have worked a lot on the electronics, we had two small problems that stopped us when track conditions were ideal, but I improved my lap time in the last minutes of the day.
“I must thank my team because they did a fantastic job, the TR003 constantly grows and it also shows to be reliable considering that today I have did 87 laps. Now we go to Qatar knowing that there is still a lot of work to do," concluded the 2011 FIM Superstock 1000 runner-up.
Behind Petrucci on the
Jerez timesheets were Franco Battaini (Ducati test rider),
Colin Edwards (Suter-BMW), Mattia Pasini (ART), Michele Pirro (FTR-Honda),
James Ellison (ART) plus FTR-Kawasaki riders Ivan Silva and Yonny Hernandez.
Petrucci believes his engine is lacking 20hp relative to some CRTs and 40hp to the manufacturer
MotoGP bikes.