The torrential rain that fell last night at Sepang left the surface of the Malaysian circuit very damp until early this afternoon, and so most of the riders only went out on track at around 2.30 pm, when conditions had improved considerably.
At the end of the day Andrea Dovizioso was seventh in the standings, with a time of 2’00.441, while his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, one of the few riders who ventured out at the start of the session, finished a fraction behind in eighth place with a time of 2’00”484.
Michele Pirro, the Ducati Test Team’s test-rider was also out on track today, pushing forward the development work on the Desmosedici GP 2017 over a total of 45 laps and eventually finishing in 19th place with a time of 2’01.232.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 42 laps – 2’00.441 (7th)
“Despite the bad track conditions in the morning because of last night’s downpour, today we managed to do four hours of work and test a lot of things. It was important because we picked up a lot of indications, my feelings were positive and I feel good with the bike. Now we must hope that the weather gives us a hand and that tomorrow the track is in a good condition to take advantage of the soft tyres and see if we can get our times down even more.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 66 laps – 2’00.484 (8th)
“I’m very happy with the progress we made today. Now I understand the bike a lot more and I managed to improve my performance, even though I’m still some way from my limit. We also improved the general set-up of the Desmosedici GP and in addition I could see that what I thought yesterday was correct: I only need a bit more time and to do a lot of laps to get even closer to the top and to my limit with this bike.”
Michele Pirro (Ducati Test Team #51) – 45 laps – 2’01.232 (19th)
“I have to say that today we managed to work well. We did back-to-back tests on chassis details, in particular with the suspension, and checked out the aerodynamics. I lapped in 2’01.232 on used tyres, which is a pretty good time, and I was always able to keep a very good pace considering the type of tyre I was using and the type of tests I was doing.”
