Following qualifying, both Ducati Team riders will start Sunday’s Grand Prix of Argentina, the second round of the 2016 MotoGP World Championship, from row 2 of the grid.
In the afternoon’s all-important Q2 session, Andrea Dovizioso was able to clock the fifth quickest time on his second run, while his team-mate Andrea Iannone was one place behind in sixth.
During FP3 in the morning, all the MotoGP riders managed to improve their times, and Iannone (third) and Dovizioso (ninth) were thus guaranteed their slots in Q2.
The final free practice session, not valid for the overall results, took place before the two qualifying sessions. Iannone was second quickest and Dovizioso sixth in FP4, which was interrupted by red flags towards the end after a crash by Redding.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’40.198 (5th)
“Today was an important and positive day: we found the track to be in a better condition than yesterday and the feeling with the bike is now very good. We managed to improve above all the front and so now I can push a lot harder. It’s not going to be easy to stay with the leaders in the race, in particular Marquez and Rossi, but seeing as all the sensations are good, we really must try to do so. We may also have to take into consideration the conditions tomorrow, because every day here in Argentina the track changes, and so we’ll have a good look at the situation during the warm-up.”
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 1’40.272 (6th)
“I have to say that this afternoon I struggled a bit: for sure we could have scored a better result but unfortunately I was not able to do a perfect lap. Oh well, tomorrow it will be important to make a very good start and so for sure we’ll be focusing on that. We have to be ready for everything, because it will be a race where it’s not that clear what the actual performance values of everyone are. We are not that far off the pace, and if we manage to improve a little but more, the race could become really interesting.”
