The first day of free practice action at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina proved to be a difficult one for the two Ducati Team riders. Following today’s two sessions, the provisional timesheets currently see Andrea Dovizioso down in fifteenth place, with his Spanish team-mate Jorge Lorenzo one place behind in sixteenth.
In the morning’s first free practice session, Dovizioso was eighth quickest and Lorenzo ninth, but in the afternoon neither of the two Ducati riders were able to improve on their time and for the moment they are both lying outside the top 10.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04): 15th (1:40.938)
“Our position in today’s FP2 session doesn’t respect the real situation, so I don’t think there is that much to worry about. In the afternoon we came across some rather strange track conditions and I didn’t have a good feeling with the bike, so I didn’t do many laps and finished the session quite far behind. However we’ve got some ideas about what happened, and we’re not in such a bad a position as might seem. Today, as I said, my feeling with the bike wasn’t the best and when the situation is like that it makes no sense to take risks in order to set mediocre times. Let’s hope we have at least one dry session tomorrow to be able to put together all the little details that can change our situation.”
Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99): 16th (1:41.019)
“It was quite a strange day because the conditions changed a lot between the morning and the afternoon. In the first session we were able to try several different things but in the second session I was not entirely at ease on the bike, above all because of the wind and the track conditions. I tried everything, but in the curve before the main straight I was losing at least half a second, I wasn’t able to keep the front wheel down on the track and, with the wind, these problems were made bigger. Tomorrow we’ll have to find some set-up solutions that help us combat these negative aspects, to improve my lap time and try and get directly into Q2.”
