The Ducati Team came away from the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez de la Frontera with a couple of relatively disappointing results. Andrea Iannone finished sixth at the chequered flag after making a mistake at the start, while his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was classified ninth overall after running off the track at the final corner of lap 2, which pushed him down to the back of the entire field.
Iannone, who started from the front row after qualifying third on the grid on Saturday, inserted the ‘wet’ mapping by mistake a few seconds before the start, and as a result his race performance was undermined as the electronic management of his Desmosedici GP15 did not function optimally.
In spite of this handicap, the Italian then produced a good run to the flag, recovering well after a bad start to move up from eleventh to sixth, and he finished just four-tenths away from Pol Espargarò in fifth place.
Dovizioso instead had a problem on lap 2 of the race when he braked for the final corner and went straight on into the run-off area. The Italian then rejoined in last place and began a good recovery through the field that took him up to ninth place at the chequered flag.
Despite today’s result Dovizioso still lies second overall in the championship table, fifteen points behind Rossi, while Iannone is in fifth place, six points behind Marquez.
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 6th
“For sure today’s race was very difficult for me, because I made an error that cost me very dear, one that I should have avoided. Unfortunately at the start I switched on the mapping for wet conditions instead of launch control, and as a result had to do the whole race with ‘wet’ set-up because the procedure to return to dry settings is very complicated. I tried to get the best result possible in these conditions, but we could certainly have scored a better result here at Jerez and so I feel very sorry for my team, which worked really well this weekend. In any case we can’t make any excuses, and starting from Le Mans I will try and make up for this weekend with all the guys in my team and Ducati by scoring some good results in the next few races.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 9th
“I am disappointed about today’s result, because I could probably have fought for fourth place with Crutchlow. We didn’t have the race pace to be able to aim for the podium, but in any case it was a real shame not to have picked up those points. I had a problem at the last corner on lap 2, when I made a small mistake and the bike almost switched off. Ho almost crashed because I lost my balance and had to go straight on into the gravel, but when I got back onto the track I felt that the bike had no problems and so I started to push hard once again. I was in last place and I had to overtake many slower riders, losing a lot of time, and at the end I couldn’t get any further up than ninth. It’s a pity, because even though the podium was out of reach for us today judging by the pace of the first three, I feel sure we could have scored some really good points.”
Luigi Dall’Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager)
“Unfortunately here at Jerez we were not able to score the results we had hoped for: both Iannone and Dovizioso had the chance to do a couple of good races and, without the problems they both had, we could certainly have taken home a lot of points in the championship. After the first three GPs of the season, when we always finished on the podium, we are clearly not satisfied with the way things went this weekend but now we have to focus on the next round at Le Mans with the aim of taking the GP15 back to the top positions in the race standings.”
