The day after, the Superbike World Championship riders, the MotoGP test riders, explored the new Balaton Park Circuit, which is 4.115 km long, features ten left-handers and six right-handers, and is located about an hour's drive from Budapest Airport.
Pol Espargaró rode the Red Bull KTM RC16, Augusto Fernández tested the M1 for Yamaha, Matteo Baiocco represented Aprilia, Michele Pirro showed up with the Ducati Desmosedici, while Stefan Bradl rode the Honda RC213V of the Honda European Test Team.
After most of the SBK aces had expressed their strong criticism of the track layout, Stefan Bradl also had a negative opinion of the design of the new racetrack, which will host the Hungarian GP on August 24th. It's going to be the first Grand Prix in Hungary since the two Hungaroring events in 1990 and 1992. The Superbike World Championship riders will already be competing at Balaton Park from July 25th to 27th.
"Our Superbike colleagues have summed it up perfectly with their critical comments about this track," the 2011 Moto2 World Champion explained in an interview with GPOne.com. "Riding a MotoGP bike on this track is really difficult. There's an endless number of left-handers, then right-handers, including many chicanes and a total of four first-gear corners, more than at Motegi. The track layout is extremely slow for the MotoGP. There's no flow to it, no fast flowing sections. It's really tough. No one will go there and say, 'Wow, what a cool racetrack!' The layout reminds me a bit of the KymiRing, but at least that one had a long straight. That's not the case here in Hungary. You don't even get into sixth gear once."
The best times on the only day of testing were 1:39.5 min, which resulted in an average of 148.9 km/h. This will place the Hungarian racetrack as presntly the slowest GP track, since the average speed on the winding Sachsenring is 166.395 km/h and, at Misano, the Pole Position lap time last year equalled an average speed of 168.982 km/h.
"Michelin wanted this test day to collect data for the Grand Prix. We now know that the Balaton Park Circuit is extremely demanding for the front tire, because you have to brake a lot, similar to Motegi. But it's a very twisty track, not at all fluid. I'm excited to see if the GP weekend goes well. If you make a small mistake when braking on this narrow track, you could easily take three or four opponents with you to their doom."
Since Bradl now has two other test rider colleagues at HRC, Aleix Espargaró and Taka Nakagami, the Bavarian hasn't ridden a MotoGP Honda in four months.
Outside temperatures reached up to 40° Celsius, and the track temperature was measured at 64° Celsius. And it's been known for several years that the RC213V can sometimes cause burns for riders due to poor ventilation in such conditions. That's why no Honda rider finished in the top 15 at the extremly hot 2022 German GP.
"The test was brutal in terms of physical exertion, but I even did a sprint simulation," the German rider stated. He achieved a total of 53 top-ten finishes in the MotoGP World Championship.
"The Sachsenring is a flowing fast racetrack compared to Balaton Park," 35-year-old Bradl said. He's in his eighth season as an HRC test rider and has a contract until the end of 2026.