southern Spain:Petrucci plays catch-up in Jerez

The Italian was unable to test fully during the official pre-season, and was severely hampered due to the lack of set-up time needed. This not only affected him from a personal point of view – getting used the new machine – but also with regards to electronics.

The ART machines had last yearbeen run exclusively with the in-house Aprilia software, though opting to run under “Open” regulations have had to switch to the Magneti Marelli championship spec software. And with such a switch not a straightforward thing to do, time to dial in the software is vital.

The team and Petrucci may have been hampered slightly by some bad weather, though still managed to get some useful track time – 110 laps in total – to be that much more prepared for the next race in Austin.

The Italian commented: “I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to do this test. We need to do miles and we were successful in this target. The ART is a fantastic bike, but it rides in a completely different way from the one that I used last year, so it was essential for me to try on a different track from Losail where we did the test and the race.”

Ducati Team testing at Jerez conditioned by bad weather

Wednesday’s changeable weather conditions, following overnight rain, did not allow the track to dry out completely, and as a result the riders and the team were unable to take full advantage of the time available in preparation for the Spanish Grand Prix, which will be held on this circuit from 2 to 4 May.

 

Neither Crutchlow and Dovizioso, who yesterday afternoon were also involved in shooting a promotional video, recorded significant lap times in the two days, but they were able to confirm to Borgo Panigale engineers that the “full-factory” electronics fitted to their Desmosedici GP14 machines after the Qatar GP were working correctly.

 

The next appointment for the Ducati Team will be the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas, the second round of the MotoGP™ World Championship, which will be held next week from 11 to 13 April at the COTA circuit in Austin, Texas.