BMW riders back on track at Valencia

BMW Motorrad riders Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam have been continuing their preparation for the season ahead with two days of testing at Valencia in Spain. Melandri and Haslam completed a total of 950 kilometres of testing on the 2012 race version of the RR in good conditions.

The team focused on verifying the latest developments it has made in recent weeks. The bikes were equipped with the latest version of the engine, as well as updated software for the BMW electronics and the riders tried new parts on several areas of the bike.

"It was good to be back on the bike after the winter," said Melandri. "The testing of the updated electronics was very encouraging. We checked if everything is working well before we go to Australia, and the result was good. Of course we still need to improve in some areas. In entering corners, I still need some more confidence on the bike in order so I am to push properly, but we are all working very hard and I am sure that we will find a solution at the next test in Australia. Phillip Island is not an easy track, so it is important to be confident with the bike to be able to go into the corners very fast. In the next two weeks I will keep in contact with the team and we will analyse the data from the test to prepare for Australia. In addition, I will do a lot of training."

Haslam was also happy with the testing work: "It was a long winter back home and I am definitely happy to be back on the bike. We were lucky with the conditions. It was a bit cold in the morning, but we were able to get most out of the two days. We got through everything that we needed to go through, so I am very positive. These two days were important. We have a lot of new things for this year and it was good to test before we go to Phillip Island. In addition, it was good to get a few laps under our belts and get up to speed again. We definitely made big steps and are much further ahead compared to last year. It really is a stronger package and we still have five more days to test in Australia to dial it all in. Next week I will go to Germany to meet the team there. Then I will fly back home, do some PR-Events and continue my training programme, and then we will be already heading to Australia."