Australian Red Bull KTM Ajo rider takes the fastest time of the second day of testing at Jerez, stomach with teammate Karel Hanika seventeenth.

The Red Bull KTM Ajo team were hard at work on the penultimate day of the 2014 preseason. The riders, meanwhile, claimed very different results on the final timesheet. Whilst Karel Hanika -seventeenth- focused on making long runs and race simulations of 20 laps, Jack Miller closed the day with the fastest time of the test so far: 1:46.259.

Jack Miller began Wednesday very strongly: He improved his best lap from yesterday, setting a timesheet-topping 1:46.727 lap and becoming the only rider to go under the 1:47 mark. That was in the morning, with better weather conditions and a little less wind than yesterday. Teammate Karel Hanika was unable to take advantage of the more favourable circumstances, suffering a mechanical issue and running off track in the morning session. However, this did not prevent him from returning and setting the twelfth best lap of the morning -and his quickest of the day- a 1:47.741.

In the first afternoon session, Miller and Hanika focused on testing parts and endurance. The Australian worked with new parts sent by KTM, whilst the Czech rookie did a race simulation and upped his total to 29 -more than anyone else on track. To round off the day in the final session, Miller topped the timesheet -1:46.259- for Day 2 and Hanika recovered from an early crash on the opening laps of the stint, placing eighteenth.

Tomorrow will see the third day of the Jerez test, the last of the 2014 preseason.

Combined Standings – Day 2
1. Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:46.259
2. Isaac Viñales (KTM) 1:46.551 +0.292
3. Danny Kent (Red Bull Husqvarna Ajo) 1:46.809 +0.550
4. Jakub Kornfeil (KTM) 1:46.901 +0.642
5. Efren Vazquez (Honda) 1:46.958 +0.699
17. Karel Hanika (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:47.741 +1.482

Jack Miller >> Audio
“We were lucky in that we could test things out and also push for a fast lap at the same time, which was good. In the middle session we tried a different swingarm, which was good in some ways but still needs a lot of fine-tuning to get completely right. It was good that we had that to test and tomorrow we have some more parts to try out, but today was definitely a good day overall. I feel comfortable, in control, there were no big moments again, so I’m really happy. Tomorrow we will try to do a long-distance run of between about 20 to 23 laps, and see how that goes. I’m not so worried about this, because today we set some good times with tyres that had 28 laps in them already.”

Karel Hanika>> Audio
“I think today could have been a little bit better. We were concentrating especially on long runs with many laps. We tried a race simulation as well, which was not so bad. I was able to do consistent laps, and that’s really important. I did all my laps alone, so I think that if I could follow someone I would be faster. Today we’ve been struggling a little bit with the settings, because sometimes they were not perfect. In the last stint it was better, but the session ended just as we were getting settled in. I think that tomorrow it’s all going to be ok.”

*Audio solely for radio use