The Ducati Team took it back to the track today in Assen (Netherlands) at the historic TT Circuit, home of the eighth round of the 2019 MotoGP World Championship. At the end of the first two free-practice sessions, held in progressively warmer weather conditions with temperatures reaching about 25 degrees in the atmosphere and 45 on the tarmac, Danilo Petrucci sits in third position, 0.314 seconds behind the provisional leader, and Andrea Dovizioso is fourth, 0.271 seconds behind his teammate.
Both Petrucci and Dovizioso worked on the pace ahead of Sunday’s race, trying several tyre options and making further evaluations, with positive feedback, on the technical upgrades introduced in the post-race tests at Montmeló. After taking third place in FP1 despite a crash (without physical consequences) early on in the session, Petrucci improved by 1.2 seconds in the afternoon. Dovizioso also made strides, taking 1.5 seconds off his best lap time during FP2.
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 1:32.952 (3rd)
“I’m happy with our performance today because we’ve been fast since the early laps in the morning. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do a perfect lap, but our priority was to work on the race pace and understand which tyres to use on Sunday. We still have work to do since our rivals are competitive as well, but we’re among the frontrunners and ready to put up a fight. We still have room for improvement both in terms of chassis and electronics, but we’re already adopting some solutions we’ve found in the last tests, which makes me confident. Our goal for the race stays the same, we want to fight for podium positions.”
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 1:33.223 (4th)
“I’m quite satisfied with this opening day because we have made some small improvements compared with 2018, even though we were competitive and stayed constantly at the front also then. We’re fast and, despite losing some ground in changes of direction and in the fast corners, we can still post quick lap times. For sure we’ve started off on the right foot but it’s still early to make any predictions. Tyre wear proved to be the decisive factor last year, and we’ll focus on that. We’re competitive, but we need to make further improvements.”
The Ducati Team will resume action tomorrow, June 29th, at 09:55 (CET) for the third free-practice session, while qualifying practice will start after FP4 at 14:10.
