The two Ducati Team riders will start tomorrow’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone from the second row of the grid after today’s Q2 qualifying session. Jorge Lorenzo was fifth quickest with a time of 2’00.399, while his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was one place behind in sixth, with a best lap of 2’00.572.
In the morning the FP3 session was held on a damp track surface following overnight rain. The two factory Ducati men, who only went out on track at the half-way through when surface conditions had improved, were unable to improve on the times they had set during Friday afternoon’s FP2, but in any case these were good enough to put both men through into Q2.
After finishing first and second in FP4 in the afternoon, Lorenzo and Dovizioso then took part in the second qualifying session for the British GP, round 12 of the championship, which will be held over a distance of 20 laps, starting at 16.30 CET tomorrow.
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 2’00.399 (5th)
“Today I did a good qualifying session. I wasn’t satisfied with my first lap time but on my second run I set a time that I thought would be good enough for the front row. However some other riders improved their times and the track record was also lowered, which shows how much the bikes and the tyres are evolving. I’m happy with fifth however as well as being able to start from the front row, especially because this is not one of the most suitable circuits for our bike. My team has been working well and we managed to resolve the problem we had yesterday with the vibrations caused by bumps on the track. Now we have to improve our pace and I think that with a smoother riding style we can improve our race performance.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 2’00.572 (6th)
“Today was rather complicated because unfortunately this morning it rained, and we lost almost all the FP3 session, without getting through the scheduled workload. At the end of FP4 we were able to improve enough, but I’m still not entirely happy and I hope that tomorrow in the warm-up we can make another step forward. We have a good pace but there are a lot of very fast riders out there, so we’ll see what it’s like in the race. However I’m satisfied with the time I set in qualifying, because starting from the first two rows was our aim and we achieved that.”
