Mahindra Racing Concludes Positive Pre–Season Testing in Valencia

Valencia, Spain, February 11 – 13, 2014: Mahindra Racing completed three successful days of Moto3 testing at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain on Thursday (February 13). Miguel Oliveira finished 9th overall and Arthur Sissis placed 12th. Both riders also set lap times within a second of the quickest rider at the test.

Miguel Oliveira is aiming to improve on his impressive 2013 debut with Mahindra Racing, when he finished sixth in the Moto3 World Championship. The 19–year–old Portuguese rider gave excellent engineering feedback that led to him finishing two of the nine sessions as the fourth quickest Moto3 rider on the track. Overall he was ninth with a best lap time of 1:40.206.

Mahindra’s new signing for 2014 is 18–year–old rider, Arthur Sissis, with the Australian embarking on his third Moto3 season this year. The test proved promising for Arthur as he finished two of the nine sessions inside the top 10 and was twelfth overall on the timesheets with a personal best lap of 1:40.409.

Along with Mahindra Racing, there are three other teams contesting the 2014 season using the Mahindra MGP30; Ambrogio Racing, CIP Moto3 and San Carlo Team Italia will also use Mahindra’s 250cc, four–stroke, single cylinder racer. The fastest of these riders was Brad Binder (Ambrogio Racing) who finished the test 19th quickest with a fastest lap time of 1:40.965.

The Mahindra Racing team will be testing again on February 18 – 20 at the Circuito de Jerez.

MIGUEL OLIVEIRA – Ninth Position
“I’m very happy about this test. We managed to do many laps without any problems and we were also quite fast. It was the first test of the season and we focused on getting rhythm after the winter break without riding. We tried a few things on the engine, brake setup and also the clutch and by the end, the team and I were happy about this test and we are excited to start again next week in Jerez.”

ARTHUR SISSIS – Twelfth Position
“These three days were positive after two months of no riding, on the first day we focused just on adapting with the bike and the second day I felt comfortable and could set a good lap time and also my best ever around here. On the third day we mainly focused on the clutch setting so I was just doing practice starts to get as much data as possible with the new bike. Overall in these three days we accomplished everything we needed for this test and we are happy.”

MUFADDAL CHOONIA – Mahindra Racing CEO
“The test went as per plan and we achieved the required results in terms of refining the setup of the bike and for the riders to get used to our new engine’s characteristics. This has been a special test for us as it was the first time we also had customer teams to support.

“That made the test all the more exciting. Most of our customer teams were testing the bike for the first time but they will need to some time to find the best set up for their riders. The Mahindra Racing track team is working closely with them to define this in the shortest possible time. We now look forward to the next test in Jerez next week to carry on from here.”