The Ducati Team riders got off to a positive start at the Montmelò circuit on the outskirts of Barcelona, where Sunday's Catalan Grand Prix will be taking place. At the end of the first day of practice, Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso were in second and fourth place respectively.
Some slight rain in the morning meant that most of the first session was wasted, and it was only towards the end of FP1 that the riders were able to lap on slicks on a dry track. Andrea Dovizioso finished the session in third, while Jorge Lorenzo was in thirteenth.
In the afternoon the conditions improved considerably with blue skies, sun and temperatures rising to 26°C. During FP2 both Ducati riders made three exits from the box and they set their best times towards the end of the session, when they fitted soft tyres on their 2017 Desmosedici GP machines.
Lorenzo finished the day in second place, with a time of 1’44.700, while Dovizioso was not far behind in fourth with a lap of 1’44.883.
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-bonnier.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KDN45HI75RGCLBKANJG2HLVVTA.jpg)
Jorge Lorenzo
2nd: 1'44.700
“It’s still too early to draw some conclusions, but we started off well and managed to be fast with all the tyres we tried, both the hard at the start of the session and the soft at the end. It’s very difficult to understand the pace of the other riders, but in any case we still have to improve, especially in the third sector where the bike moves around much more than in the test and we’re still not able to be very fast.”
Andrea Dovizioso
4th: 1'44.883
“Even though we found the track in quite a bad state and with a lot of holes, the test a couple of weeks ago helped us to establish a good base and today we set some good times. I think that we have to work on consistency more than speed because the grip of the rear tyre drops very quickly and the pace that we’ll be able to keep after a few laps will be very important. In any case today we started well and tomorrow we’ll work to try and improve the feeling at the front.”
