The two Ducati Team riders will start tomorrow’s Czech Grand Prix at the Brno circuit from the second row of the grid. Andrea Dovizioso was fourth quickest in the Q2 qualifying session with a time of 1’55.441, while his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was just a tenth of a second behind in sixth place with a time of 1’55.552.
This morning both Ducati men were placed inside the top 10 at the end of the FP3 session, thus guaranteeing themselves access to the all-important second qualifying session for the first four rows.
The Czech Grand Prix, round 10 of the 2017 MotoGP World Championship, will be held over 22 laps and will get underway tomorrow at 1400 CET.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’55.441 (4th)
“I’m very pleased with everything we’ve done this weekend: the track is very difficult but in any case we’ve managed to work well, making progress session after session. We did quite a lot of laps with used tyres in FP4 in the afternoon to try and get ready for the race, and our pace was not bad at all. I think that there are five or six riders with a similar pace and so we’ll probably see some racing in a group. However we’ve really got a good base and I believe we can do a good race tomorrow.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 1’55.552 (6th)
“Today we managed to improve several aspects of the bike and we were able to lap all day in dry conditions to get a better idea of the new fairing. Even though we lose a bit of top speed, I’m still very satisfied with the way it performs: I need more downforce at the front and this new aero package makes me a lot more confident. Despite the fact that they cancelled my first time, we did a good qualifying session, and so on my second run I couldn’t risk as much as I would have liked while trying to go for an even quicker time. The second row is OK for me, but the most important thing is that we have a good race pace, as we did at Jerez. We’ll have to see what the weather is going to be like tomorrow but, even if it were to rain, I think we can fight for the podium.”
