Febvre talks about his first experience with the Yamaha
There is little rest planned for the Yamaha factory team during the off-season. 2014 MXGP vice-world champion Jerremy Van Horebeek has already completed his second test session with the 2015 model with the team based in Parma, Italy. This happened under the leadership of former world champion Michele Rinaldi, and in the coming days the newcomer to the MXGP class Romain Febvre will complete a number of further test laps.
Van Horebeek took just a week off from training to test for his third season in the MXGP class and his second on the YZ450FM. The Belgian traveled to Italy and rode the former GP circuits of Montevarchi and Cingoli for the '15 testing phases. “It was the second time (since the 2014 campaign stopped) with Jeremy and we had to try some new things with the bike and different suspension settings,” said Team Manager Massimo Raspanti who helped the 24-year-old to eleven podium finishes. last season. We will know more when we receive the last material in January (for the suspensions), but we did find some improvements at the rear. On the engine side we played around with the power. We are therefore looking for some gains that we can use for the 2015 engine in one of these areas.”
While Yamaha has already had a very effective operating system with Van Horebeek, (who changed the balance of the bike last season which was also his first on the blue bike) they are now also working with the winner of the Brazilian Grand Prix MX2 – Romain Febvre. The 23-year-old Frenchman is coming over to MXGP and will ride the 450cc machine for the first time in 2015. “He is very easy to work with,” says Raspanti. “He has a very calm character and we already knew that he was a fast driver. Of course, everything was new in the first days of working together, but we were already making some progress and we will start testing with him again soon.”
Febvre had been riding the Yamaha for about five days as a first introduction. He rode the production YZ450F for two days and then three with the Factory bike. “It was my first introduction to the team and I didn't really know anyone there, but it was still nice to work with them,” he said.
“I had two days to get used to the Yamaha with a standard engine. I had never ridden a Yamaha before and I wanted to get a feel for it,” he says. “I immediately felt that it was a good bike and I enjoyed it, but I could also immediately notice that a few things could be improved for my driving style. The power of the engine was very powerful at the bottom and was sometimes a bit too strong for my driving style. I then rode the factory bike and the feeling was amazing. The force was nice and well distributed and I didn't change much."
“I'm going to do some more testing this week to experiment with different settings, but my speed has already been good the last few days with the Factory Bike,” he says. “I already rode the 2014 GP bike and then the 2015, I immediately felt more power and felt comfortable on it. I have never ridden with Kayaba suspension at the front, but it was ideal to have Fabio (Santoni) there to get the set-up I want. And again this makes the work a little easier for me.”
Text: Adam Wheeler – OTOR
Photo: Instagram
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