After the Suter BMW of Forward Racing, the FTR Kawasakis of BQR and the Aprilia ARTs, the last of the CRT bikes will get its first run out on track today. San Carlo Gresini's Michele Pirro will take the Honda-powered FTR out at Imola for a preliminary shakedown test today, Friday, with two more days of testing to follow for Gresini's CRT machine. According to GPOne.com, the bike will only get an hour of track time on Friday, to test that everything is working correctly.
The bike had initially been due to make its debut at the Aragon CRT test earlier this month, but a shortage of parts - the seat unit and subframe were not yet ready, according to GPOne.com - meant that the debut had to be delayed. Given the cold and windy conditions at Aragon, which saw the bikes which did attend confined to their garages for much of the time, the Gresini team did not lose out too much by not attending the test.
