Three days of official MotoGP testing came to an end this afternoon at the Sepang circuit. All the riders were able to lap on a dry track until around 3 pm, when the showers that fell on some parts of the Malaysian circuit hampered track activity. The session got going again one hour later and continued until 6 pm, when the final session of these first 2017 winter tests came to a close.
Andrea Dovizioso set a time of 1’59.553, which put him third in today’s standings and fourth overall, while Jorge Lorenzo continued his positive learning curve on his new Ducati Desmosedici GP machine. The Spaniard further improved his performance to set a best time of 1’59.767 late in the morning on medium tyres, ending the day in ninth place and tenth overall.
Today also saw another day of activity for Casey Stoner, who had already taken part in the first day of testing on January 30th. The Australian rider continued with development work on the 2017 Desmosedici GP together with Ducati Test Team technicians and he finished the day in seventh place, with a time of 1’59.639 (eighth in the combined standings).
The next official MotoGP tests are scheduled for the Phillip Island circuit in Australia on 15th-17th February.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – today 56 laps – 1’59.553 (3rd)
“I’m very satisfied with the work we have done in these tests, because despite the weather conditions, we were able to do all the scheduled tests and checks and gather important information for our development. I have a good feeling with my bike, better than last year, something I really didn’t expect, but back in the factory the engineers have really done a good job. We have a good base, but we still have to improve some of our characteristics, even though I am leaving Malaysia very happy. In a few days’ time there will be an important test at Phillip Island, which is a completely different circuit to Sepang, and our aim will be to also be competitive on that track.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – today 66 laps – 1’59.767 (9th)
“I’m happy because we managed to make a lot of progress and day after day I am getting to know the bike even better. Today I was able to take seven-tenths of a second off the time I set yesterday and on every exit I’m getting closer and closer to my potential, even though I’m still missing something. The whole team is really motivated, and we are working well together. In the last three days we accumulated a lot of useful information to further improve the Desmosedici and we are becoming more and more competitive.”
Casey Stoner (Ducati Test Team #27) – today 46 laps – 1’59.639 (8th)
“Today was another fairly positive day, we got quite a few things tested before a little bit of rain disrupted us but we still got some good track time towards the end of the day as well. We got to do a lot of configurations between chassis, swing-arms, engine mappings and different things like this, so all in all it was quite positive and hopefully we got some good things to take away from this test.”
