Both Ducati Team riders had a positive start to their German Grand Prix weekend at the Sachsenring circuit close to Chemnitz in the former East Germany, where Sunday’s ninth round of the season is set to take place.
Andrea Iannone concluded the first day of free practice with second place in the timesheets while Andrea Dovizioso was not far behind in fifth.
On a cloudy day, with temperatures of around 15°C, all the MotoGP riders set their best time in the afternoon’s second free practice session which was held in the dry. Earlier in the morning, a few drops of rain began to fall after ten minutes of FP1, and most of the riders only went out for a few laps. They then stayed in their pit garages until the end of the session, which finished with Iannone first and Dovizioso fifth.
On the penultimate lap of FP2, the rider from Vasto notched up his quickest time of the day in 1’22.381, a couple of tenths of a second away from Viñales, today’s provisional leader. Dovizioso on the other hand had to settle for fifth-quickest time, in 1’22.930, which he recorded on his final lap.
Today’s Day 1 standings saw six Ducati riders in the top 10: as well as the two Ducati Team men, Barbera, Petrucci, Redding and Hernandez were classified in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively.
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 1’22.381 (2nd)
“At the end of the day, I am satisfied. Both this morning and this afternoon the feeling with the bike was very good: I started off very confident and I like the way the bike behaves. I’m a bit surprised, because both last year and in 2014 we struggled quite a lot here, and so it means that once again we have all managed to do a good job together. Today we had a few problems with grip in general, but I think this is a problem that everyone has. In my opinion, Michelin brought the right tyres for this circuit, but the only problem is that the temperature was too low today and so we had to adapt the set-up of the bike to deal with the situation.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’22.930 (5th)
“My weekend has begun in a positive way, especially if we consider that the track was in a difficult condition because of the cold and it was very easy to crash. In the end we are in a good position, even though the feeling with the bike is not yet perfect and I can still feel some vibration in the right-hand corners. I hope that the weather improves tomorrow, which will allow us to work better so that we can figure out these last few details.”
