Andrea Dovizioso will start the San Marino Grand Prix, which is scheduled to get underway tomorrow at 14.00 on the Misano World Circuit, from the second row of the grid. The Romagna-born Ducati Team racer set the sixth quickest time in the Q2 qualifying session today, after completing FP3 in the morning in tenth place.
It was a difficult qualifying session on the other hand for Danilo Petrucci, seventeenth at the end of the day. The rider from Umbria was unable to establish a good feeling with his Desmosedici GP on this circuit and, after concluding FP3 in seventeenth place, was unable to overcome the hurdle of getting through Q1 by finishing in seventh place.
Misano wild-card rider Michele Pirro had quite a positive day, finishing ninth in FP3, which sent him directly through into Q2. The Ducati Team’s rider from Puglia will start tomorrow’s 27-lap race from Row 4 with the twelfth time.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 1’33.038 (6th)
“The second row for tomorrow is surely very important, especially considering the difficulties we have had to face until today here at Misano. Working calmly and methodologically, we got closer and closer to the frontrunners, especially on pace, and tomorrow, if we make a good start, I believe we can have a say in the matter because the race is particularly long. There are six riders who have a good pace and we will do our best to get inside that group.”
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 1’33.630 (17th)
“It was my worst qualifying of the season and to be honest I didn’t expect to have to start so far behind, even though I knew that over one lap I was going to struggle. Clearly the grid position doesn’t help me one bit, but I’m quite confident for the race because my pace is not bad. This evening we’ll have a good look at the data to try and find a solution that can help to improve my feeling for the race tomorrow”.
Michele Pirro (#51 Ducati Test Team) – 1’33.461 (12th)
“We surely expected something more from the qualifying session because we had shown in the free practice that we had the potential to do better. Unfortunately, we tried something different in the setup that didn’t work the way we had expected it to do and so I wasn’t able to qualify any further up. In any case we’re confident for tomorrow, and if I get a good start, I’m sure we can have a good race and make up some positions.”
The three factory Ducati riders will be back on track in tomorrow morning’s warm-up before the 27-lap race, which is down to start at 14.00 CET.
