The Mission Winnow Ducati team resumed track activity today at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Montmeló (Spain), home of the seventh round of the 2019 MotoGP World Championship, for the opening day of free practice ahead of Sunday’s race. Mild weather conditions – with approximately 25 degrees in the atmosphere and 40 on the tarmac – characterized Friday’s sessions, during which Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci worked on the race setup, seizing second (+0.281) and eighth (+0.520) position respectively in the provisional time sheets, where the top 19 riders sit within less than one second.
After posting the fourth-fastest time in the morning, Dovizioso improved his lap time by circa seven tenths of a second in FP2 to finish in 1:40.360. Petrucci also made strides despite some issues under braking, taking more than a second off his best time in the afternoon to post a 1:40.599, about two tenths of a second behind his teammate.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 1:40.360 (2nd)
“I’m satisfied with our performance in this first day of practice, I had a good feeling with the bike and we’ve been fast. As it often happened here in the past, grip is very low and the track’s layout makes tyre management particularly difficult, especially considering the higher temperatures forecast for the rest of the weekend. However, I believe everyone is struggling under this aspect. We have work left to do ahead of the race: we’re still evaluating the different tyre compounds available and we need to improve the front-end feeling, but my sensations are good and so are the lap times, so I’m confident.”
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 1:40.599 (8th)
“My feeling on the bike is quite good, even though this morning we encountered an atypical issue with rear grip, which slowed our program down a little bit. In FP2 we made a big step forward, even though there is still room for improvement. We’re not far from the front in terms of pace, while we’re still not at our best on the flying lap because I struggle in corner entry as I feel little support from the rear. We have clear ideas about what changes to make on the bike and we defined our work program for tomorrow, so I’m optimistic.”
The Mission Winnow Ducati team will resume action tomorrow, June 15th, at 09:55 (CET) for the third free-practice session, while qualifying will start at 14:10 shortly after FP4.
