Ducati Team riders, Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone, ended the first day of free practice for the Aragón GP in eighth and ninth place respectively.
In the morning’s FP1 session, Dovizioso finished sixth, while his team-mate Iannone, who is still suffering with his shoulder injury, was four places behind in tenth.
FP2 in the afternoon took place in much higher temperatures than in the morning, and the two Italians went out towards the end of the session with a soft rear tyre to set their times. Dovizioso’s lap of 1’48.575 put the man from Forlì in eighth place, while his team-mate from Vasto was just one-tenth of a second behind in ninth with a time of 1’48.615.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’48.575 (8th)
“It wasn’t a very good day for us, even though there’s not much of a gap to second place. This afternoon we encountered some difficulty and we couldn’t do as many laps as we would have liked. We are working on the electronics and in particular on the mapping, but we have not yet been able to find an entirely satisfactory solution and this didn’t allow us to do the usual job of fine-tuning the set-up. In any case, we are positive and so now will work to try and be more competitive tomorrow.”
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 1’48.615 (9th)
“I am not very pleased with my time, but in the end, considering also my physical condition, I think I got the best result possible today. I can’t deny that my shoulder hurts a lot, but I have already found myself having to manage this sort of situation this year and I am also aiming to do my best here as well. I didn’t take any pain-killers today: tomorrow we will see how I feel and if necessary I will take something, because it will be tough to get through the entire weekend like this. It will however be essential to improve our performance on the track, because we are a bit behind and I am not satisfied with today’s time.”
