Circuit of the Americas Andrea Dovizioso 11th Danilo Petrucci 13th in COTA FP

The Mission Winnow Ducati team resumed action today at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin (U.S.A.) for the third round of the 2019 MotoGP World Championship. In Friday’s free-practice sessions, the factory riders worked on the setup of their Desmosedici GP 19, showing good progress throughout the day despite facing some issues in their quest for a flying lap with soft tyres at the end of FP2.

Andrea Dovizioso, who improved his lap times by 1.2 seconds in FP2, finished the day in 11th position on the time sheets with a personal best of 2:04.714, about eight tenths of a second from the provisional lead. Despite taking almost two seconds off his best time in the second and final session with a 2:04.953, Danilo Petrucci was 13th in the standings, about two tenths of a second behind his teammate.

Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 2:04.714 (11th)
“We knew we would have struggled a bit more than usual on this track but, all in all, we’ve been competitive enough with a race setup. This afternoon, in particular, our pace was decent. In retrospect, I think we didn’t choose the best front tyre for the final time attack in FP2. I couldn’t put together the lap that I wanted, and it’s a shame because tomorrow it’ll probably rain. Looking at the positives, going through Q1 could represent an advantage to have more feeling on the wet in Q2. We’ll have to see what the weather is like tomorrow. Conditions may make a big difference in terms of grid positions and, consequently, the race itself: we’ll have to be ready for all scenarios.”

Danilo Petrucci (#9 Mission Winnow Ducati) – 2:04.953 (13th)
“We were able to improve quite a bit throughout the day, but I still don’t have the right confidence. Despite feeling more at ease in FP2, we couldn’t seize the top 10 in the final minutes, which somewhat complicates our plans for tomorrow because the forecast says it’s going to rain. We don’t have one big issue to solve, and this makes the work on the setup a bit tricky. We need to improve in terms of grip and stability to be more consistent. I can’t say I’m satisfied with our position, but we still have ideas to try and I’m confident we’ll be able to make progress tomorrow.”

The Mission Winnow Ducati team will resume action tomorrow, April 13th, at 09:55 local time (CET -7) for a third free-practice session ahead of qualifying, which is scheduled to start at 14:10, shortly after FP4.

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