From a press release issued by Honda Racing:

MotoGP test
Valencia, Spain, December 12, 2003.

Temperature: 19 degrees C
Weather: Sunny

Honda Riders Fast on Final Day in Valencia

Progress continued on the final day of the three-day final test of 2003 at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain, with two of the four Honda riders improving their times and the fourth holding onto the fastest time overall.

For the second time in three days, Telefonica MoviStar Suzuki’s Sete Gibernau finished the day with the fastest time, the Barcelona native making progress while working through the choice between the 16.5 inch and 17 inch front tires. Gibernau ended the day with a time of 1:33.20, well under the 1:33.404 he turned in the season-ending Community of Valencia Grand Prix just six weeks ago. “In the whole three days I haven’t touched one click of the bike, just to keep the bike how it was. And that’s why I’m so happy,” he said. Tomorrow Gibernau is off to play golf with countryman Sergio Garcia.

Teammate Colin Edwards reverted to fork settings he’d used en route to the 2002 World Superbike Championship aboard the Castrol Honda VTR1000SP-2 and the change was instant and dramatic. A new set of forks installed at mid-day inspired confidence in the Texan and he instantly dropped half a second from his lap time, then consistently lapped in the mid 1:33’s, the fastest he’d ever been around the 4.005 kilometer circuit. “They’re basically World Superbike forks,” Edwards said. “Put it on there and went half a second faster in two laps and kept it there.” Edwards lost more than half the day when a mechanical problem sidelined him in the early going. Once back on track, he attacked with his trademark aggression and smoothness, which translated to his best times of the weekend.

Pramac Honda’s Makoto Tamada nearly equaled his best lap time from the previous day before crashing after just 20 laps. The Japanese rider had little warning when an oil leak coated his rear tire sending him over the high-side. He was up quickly and unhurt, but his testing day was over.

Camel Pramac Pons’ Max Biaggi found an infuriating chatter this morning that never went away. The veteran Italian said the problem was perplexing and kept him from improving on the best lap of the test, a 1:32.88 done on Thursday afternoon. “Basically I lost one day because in the morning I have a chatter problem, big problem,” he said.

Overall though, the test was deemed a success by Honda Racing Corporation team manager Shoji Tachikawa. “Everybody made many laps and we tested many items for Michelin and Bridgestone, and they’re happy,” he said. He was also happy that HRC was able to supply advanced spec motors at the end of the race year, rather than early in the 2004 test season. “We planned the new spec engine a little early. Normally it’s January or February. We prepared for the riders now because it’s necessary. It’s an evolution engine and we’ll have a new one for the first test of the New Year.”

Sete Gibernau, 1:33.20, 78 laps.
I think we’re doing a great job exactly, that’s our main goal to work very hard on what we think has to be the correct bike and the correct setting and the correct tires and that takes a lot of effort from not only me but the whole time to be very concentrated every lap for three days. And not. Just focused on that. And in racing it’s very difficult because at the end of the day everyone is looking for the lap time but many of the times you have to put that behind to see what the pace is, to see what happens when you’ve got 30 laps on the tyre. It’s very difficult to go back and forth between the 16.5 and the 17-inch the riding style is completely different. So that’s why at the end I’d been able to do low 33’s with both and that is why I’m so happy. Now I can race with any of the tyres, although I think my mind is quite clear on what I would like to have. We tried 16.5-inch small rim, big rim, 17 inch small, wide. The overall is the reaction and the speed that the bikes moves from one lean angle completely to the other. That is the biggest difference. The 16.5 really moves very fast from the right to the left. It can’t be straight up and down and then throw it. Really when you’re on the side to the other side it’s faster. There’s other areas that we need to work.

Colin Edwards, 1:33.40, 63 laps
I struggled for the two days just trying to find where the limit was. I had no clue. The front wasn’t telling me anything. When I rode this thing at Barcelona, the Showa guys said we have your fork valving from Superbike ready, so you can test that in Valencia. As it turned out that particular setting is one that probably went through about 15 or 18 different settings in 2002, found that one, never changed all year. Same valving, unheard of. Never changed the valving and you know how good that bike was. As it turned out we didn’t put it on until midday today. We changed forks, just totally forks. Just different all around. Different valving, different coding, different everything. Did 33’s the whole time. It was good. I had no clue what was going on. Then as soon as I put those forks on I remember these. ‘I missed you. Thanks honey for coming back.’ Stayed on 16.5. This 16.5 is different from the one I was on in 2002, even last year. I was just milling around while the bike was getting put back together. So I was like, when I get back on we’ll go as hard as we can for as long as we can.

Makoto Tamada, 1:33.50
We had a small problem and for this moment they’re checking it. It caused me to fall when there was oil on the tyre. It happened very suddenly in the right at the top of the track before the last corner after the short cut. Luckily, I was not injured. Before I fell, we changed the front fork settings and it helped. But we had a lot of things to test. I wanted to make the fast lap of this test.

Max Biaggi, 1:33.85, 50 laps
In the morning and afternoon we changed the tyre, the front the rear, we changed the suspension. No change. We used the 17. I tried the 16.5. No change. So a surprise. Also the Japanese are surprised because they see on the data big chatter. They don’t know where it’s coming from. We set the fast time yesterday and normally you want to go faster. I ended up with such a big problem that we didn’t have yesterday at all. When you watch the data, it’s fair. That’s what happened. That’s what you see. They must check.