The Ducati Team resumed track action today at Le Mans (France) for the fifth round of the 2019 MotoGP Championship. Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci took fifth and sixth position respectively in the combined time sheets at the end of Friday’s free-practice.
Second in the morning session, Dovizioso further improved his lap times by about four tenths of a second in FP2, posting a personal best of 1:31.736, 0.308 seconds behind the provisional leader. Petrucci, third in FP1, also showed progress in the afternoon despite an early crash without physical consequences, finishing just 0.163 behind his teammate with a personal best of 1:31.899.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 1:31.736 (5th)
“We’ve just started the weekend, but my sensations on the bike are quite good. Compared to last year, however, there are more competitive riders so there’s quite a pack fighting for top positions, but we’re part of that. We still need to improve some details to be able to keep the pace we have in mind. We tried different setups and evaluated several tyre options, making a step forward during FP2, but we still have room for improvement and we’ll need to be smart and put together all the data we gathered to be even more competitive tomorrow and prepare for the race in the best possible way.”
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 1:31.899 (6th)
“This morning we started off on the right foot, while the crash at the beginning of FP2 forced us to slightly modify our program. The feeling with my Desmosedici GP was slightly better during FP1, but I think this is due to the trickier conditions of the tarmac in the afternoon, as the multiple crashes seem to indicate. We’ve made a comparison between different setups and now we’ll look for the best possible compromise to make another step forward tomorrow. I want to try to be more competitive during qualifying and then play our cards right during the race.”
The Ducati Team will resume action tomorrow, May 18th, at 09:55 for a third free-practice session ahead of qualifying, which will start after FP4, at 14:10 local time (CET).
