Dovi: It's easier than my 250!
The Italian has been rewarded for his loyalty to Honda in the quarter-litre class, where he has finished second to Aprilia's Jorge Lorenzo for the past two seasons, with a MotoGP ride for 2008 - and Team Scot has merged with JiR to help make it happen.
'Dovi' and JiR Team Scot thus completed their first 48 laps at Valencia on Tuesday afternoon, where the 21-year-old set the 14th fastest lap time - 2.4secs behind MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner - but claimed his only difficultly was getting used to the engine braking.
The Italian has been rewarded for his loyalty to Honda in the quarter-litre class, where he has finished second to Aprilia's Jorge Lorenzo for the past two seasons, with a MotoGP ride for 2008 - and Team Scot has merged with JiR to help make it happen.
'Dovi' and JiR Team Scot thus completed their first 48 laps at Valencia on Tuesday afternoon, where the 21-year-old set the 14th fastest lap time - 2.4secs behind MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner - but claimed his only difficultly was getting used to the engine braking.
"I found the RC212V easier to ride than my 250, the electronics control things very well," declared the Italian. "The power is good but there's not too much like the older 990cc bike, which I tried back in 2004. People ask about the difference between the 250 and the 800. The biggest thing is the completely different way the power comes in: with the 250 the power is high in the rev-range, with the 800 there is power everywhere.
"The electronics make a big difference. On every corner I can fully open the throttle and the traction control handles it - even on a bike with more than 100bhp more than my 250! If I did that on a 250 I would go flying in the air and it would hurt!" he smiled.
"I think that the electronics can be both good and bad, as sometimes I would like a bike that I could powerslide and perhaps one that would be a little more difficult to ride. The only difficulty I had today was coping with the engine braking system, the feeling is so much different to my 250cc two-stroke.
"Maybe tomorrow we will see if we start to change things. This is the start of a new adventure for me and I'm looking forward to the challenge of taking on the world's best riders in MotoGP next year," he concluded.
"Today is the first day with a new machine for Andrea and it was quite positive I think," declared team director Gianluca Montiron. "If we compare the times Shinya Nakano was doing on this bike on Friday - 1min 34.5secs - Andrea was doing a 1min 34.7secs after just half a day on the bike, which is very impressive. What was also very positive today were his clear comments and feedback about the machine and how he felt on it. This is of vital importance to our team and to our partners such as Michelin and HRC."
