At the end of what has been a challenging weekend in Germany, race day at the Sachsenring saw Ducati Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden ride to seventh and ninth place finishes, respectively.
Starting from the ninth position on the grid, the Italian knew it would be a difficult race, but he advanced to seventh place by the halfway point and maintained the position to the finish. As for his American teammate, after falling in the morning warm-up, Hayden had to switch to his second bike, and he never had the grip that he needed to ride aggressively.
The Ducati Team now heads straight to Monterey, California, for next weekend’s United States Grand Prix at Laguna Seca.
Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team, 7th
“Speaking from a personal perspective, I’m fairly pleased with the day; all weekend it was very difficult to do a pace in the low 1:23s, so I’m satisfied that I managed to do it for the entire race. Obviously, we can’t be pleased with this result, as we were 30 seconds back, but it’s just further confirmation of our current gap. We couldn’t expect anything else today. We’re working a lot, but again, the bike is similar to the one we started the year with, so it couldn’t be otherwise. I’m not looking for excuses; it’s just the reality at this moment. To all the Ducati fans, I say be patient. We’re working as hard as we can to improve our competitiveness, but it’s not a situation that you can solve race by race or with simple changes to setup.”
Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team, 9th
“It certainly wasn’t the race we’d hoped for. I was having a good morning warm-up until I had a crash right at the end. Even though it was a small one, it damaged the frame, so it was best to switch to the other GP13 for the race. I hadn’t ridden that bike much, and I didn’t have the same feeling as with the other one, especially in terms of grip. In the beginning, every time I pushed, the rear would come around on me. It was a long, lonely race. We need to understand what happened, because we had a much better pace than that all weekend, especially with old tyres. It’s a shame because as usual, the guys really gave me their all, and they deserve better than that.”
Bernhard Gobmeier – Ducati Corse General Manager
“Again, this wasn’t one of our best weekends. On Nicky’s side we saw good pace in the practices, and he was doing very well this morning until his crash. We expected that he could do a similar pace for the race, but with the other bike we didn’t find the same grip levels. As for Andrea, unfortunately he crashed the new development frame on Friday morning, and we had to go back to the standard version. Nonetheless, he did an excellent job to do those low 1:23s over the whole race distance. Again, we have a big job in front of us, and we’re working hard on new solutions, but they need time to be tested and produced before they’re brought to the racetrack.”
