The Ducati Team was back on track today in Jerez de la Frontera for the second Grand Prix of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship, which will be held this Sunday again at the Andalusian race track.
After the feedback collected last week at the same race venue during the first round of the season, Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci spent today’s two sessions working on improving the setup of their Desmosedici GP 20 bikes and thus increase their competitiveness for Sunday’s race.
On a day once again characterised by clear skies and very high temperatures of the asphalt, Dovizioso closed the two sessions with the tenth time overall in 1:37.739 thanks to the fastest time set during this morning FP1. Today, the rider from Forlì had worked on different setup configurations intending to improve the performance of his bike, especially in the middle of the corners.
After having struggled all the weekend last week due to the after-effects of the crash suffered in the pre-race test, Danilo Petrucci was back at his full fitness today, as he focused on improving his feeling with the Desmosedici GP. The rider from Terni finished with the sixteenth time overall in 1:37.997, less than a second from today’s pacesetter and only 258 thousands of a second from his teammate.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 1:37.739 (10th)
“I am satisfied with the work we have done during Day 1. We managed to improve my feeling with the bike a lot, especially in braking and entering the corners, but still, I can’t be as smooth as I would like on the corner exit. Looking at the timesheets, we see that our rivals have also managed to make some progress compared to last weekend, so it will be important to continue to improve and find a good rhythm for the race. Tomorrow it will be crucial to do a good qualifying and be able to start from the first rows in the race.”
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 1:37.997 (16th)
“Unfortunately in this heat, being able to improve the times in the afternoon is always very complicated. My feelings are slowly improving, but today I struggled mainly to turn the bike, and so, it will be an aspect that we will have to work on. Tomorrow morning’s session will be crucial because being able to get into Q2 can make really a difference ahead of the race. The goal now is to be able to be fast immediately in FP3 and get a good result in qualifying.”
Tomorrow, Saturday 25th July, at 9:55 AM local time, the Ducati Team riders will take to the track again for the third free practice session that will precede the official qualifying, after FP4, starting from 2:10 PM local time (GMT +2.00)
