The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team resumed action at Losail (Qatar), home of the last round of the 2017 WorldSBK Championship, which is also the only one held during night time. Chaz Davies and Marco Melandri took it back to the track after sundown to seize 4th and 7th position respectively in the combined time sheets.
Both riders took advantage of the two hour-long sessions to lay the setup foundations ahead of the races, which for the first time will be held on Friday and Saturday. Davies, third in FP1, took about four tenths of a second off his personal best to post a 1:58.146 that granted him fourth position, +0.470 behind the provisional best time. Melandri finished Day 1 with 1:58.671, more than half a second faster than his time in FP1, to take 7th position (+1.005).
Both riders thus gained direct access to Superpole 2. The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team will resume action tomorrow at 16:20 local time (CET +2) for FP3 in preparation of Superpole and Race 1, which is scheduled to start at 21:00 local time.
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 1’58.136 (4th)
“I’m pretty happy overall with how things went today. We’re sticking to the plan, working on the setup with a focus on tyre options, which we took to race distance. We managed to be pretty consistent, which is the most important thing ahead of the races, but we still miss something on fresh tires, especially in the first couple of sectors. We made some changes that turned out to be positive, we just didn’t have enough time to try one final step before doing the time attack. I’m confident about the direction we’re going in, we’re all pretty close and I’m looking forward to two fun races.”
Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #33) – 1:58.671 (7th)
“Despite the steps forward made recently, today was a bit more complicated than what we expected. The grip wasn’t bad at the beginning, but as humidity increased in FP2 we struggled with both the front and the rear. Now we’ll take a good look at the data to study some radical changes ahead of tomorrow. FP3 will crucial to this end. I’m confident we’ll get back the right feeling again before Superpole and Race 1”.
Weekend Schedule (CET +2)
Friday, November 3
16:20 – 16:45 FP3
18:30 – 18:45 Superpole 1
18:55 – 19:10 Superpole 2
21:00 Race 1
Saturday, November 4
17:30 – 17:45 Warm-up
21:00 Race 2
