Jake Gagne posted the fastest lap time during MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike test session six Wednesday at Circuit of The Americas (COTA).
Gagne, the 2020 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship runner-up, did a 2:09.698 on his Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha YZF-R1, and that time was close to Gagne’s best from Day One, a 2:09.297, in spite of much cooler and windier conditions on Wednesday.
Instead of going for fast single lap times or a setup specific to COTA, Gagne said he and his new crew are trying a lot of different things on his bike to find a better baseline setup to start the 2021 season with.
“We tried a different engine braking setup, a different thought process,” said Gagne. “We tried some different gearing and wheelbases. We tried a short bike and a long bike, stuff like that just to see what it’s like.
“This place is really good for testing because it has a little bit of everything: slow corners, fast corners, hard braking. It even has bumpy sections so we can test suspension stuff over that.”
After testing a new swingarm most of the day on Tuesday, Bobby Fong went back to his 2020-spec swingarm on his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki GSX-R1000 in session six and did the second-best lap, a 2:09.925.
Loris Baz had led every session to this point of the two-day test, but Baz crashed his Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York Panigale V4 R in Turn One early in the session. Baz said he got into Turn One too hot, ran wide while trail braking, and tucked the front.
“We also made a big change and it’s much cooler than yesterday,” Baz told Roadracingworld.com. “It was a very small crash. I didn’t even come in the box. I picked up the bike and kept making laps.”
