Misano Adriatico (Italy), Friday 20 June 2014 – The Ducati Superbike Team made an extremely positive start to its ‘home’ race weekend at the Misano World Circuit today; thanks to a very fast final lap at the session’s end, Davide Giugliano projected himself into overall first place, with teammate Chaz Davies concluding the first day of action in fourth position.
The two Ducati Superbike riders started the race weekend strongly at what is another home track for the team. In the morning’s first timed practice session, which took place in warm and sunny conditions, both Davies and Giugliano worked well with their technicians, making constant progress throughout the 45-minute session. They both finished practice inside the top five, with Davies registering the third fastest time (1’37.217) and Giugliano closing fifth (1’37.421).
In the afternoon, and in similarly hot conditions (air temperature 35°C, track 47°C), Davide was able to improve on his time by eight tenths, moving up into second place in the standings. The session was then interrupted 12 minutes from the end with a red flag after one of the wildcard riders suffered a technical failure. In the final phase, after the session resumed, Chaz was able to improve, by more than half a second, to record a strong lap in 1’36.636 which positioned him fourth at the session’s end. In the final seconds Davide, not yet satisfied with his lap time, was able to make another step, stopping the clock on 1’36.370, fast enough to assure him of first position at the end of day one.
Quotes after the day’s sessions:
Davide Giugliano (Ducati Superbike Team #34) – 1st (1’36.370)
“We’re quite fast already and the bike has been working really well. Things are not yet perfect but we’re working hard and I’m very pleased. Our pace is strong; we made a long-run and I was able to lap with times that were consistently under 1’37. We still need to improve a little in sector 3, with the long turn – I think we can gain a couple of tenths there but all things considered we’ve made a great start to the weekend.”
Chaz Davies (Ducati Superbike Team #7) – 4th (1’36.636)
“I’m pretty happy and the bike is working well. I haven’t changed much throughout the day, nothing drastic anyway, as we seemed to improve quite quickly this morning. We need to be ready to make another step tomorrow, as everyone will pick up the pace, but it’s all going well so far. We made an 18-lap run and the tyre held up pretty well which I’m pleased about. We haven’t had any real edge grip issues like we did in Malaysia, perhaps because the track temperature is not as high. Anyway a good first day.”
