Andrea Dovizioso has indicated Ducati has “found something interesting” with the early version of its GP19 machine, after the Italian was competitive throughout the two-day MotoGP test at Valencia.
The 32-year old didn’t sample the new bike on Tuesday, instead deciding to find an ideal set-up with the machine on which he won Sunday's season finale.
Wednesday brought the chance to try the GP19, however. And in terms of speed, it looked promising. Dovizioso ended the two days second overall, his best lap time of 1m 30.890s just 0.133s off pace setter Maverick Viñales.
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But it was his comments on the GP19’s behaviour that were of most interest, however. Dovizioso said their efforts were focussed on improving the Ducati’s well-known turning deficiencies, and while his impressions were positive, he is keen to reconfirm at Jerez next week.
“It was a better day compared to yesterday because we were able to compare something,” he said. “We found something interesting. I want to say interesting, but we need to try it at a different track.
“What we are trying is something very difficult, not easy to understand the difference, and now we need to make the decision for the next bike. It’s very important the feedback. I’m tired, like everybody. But it’s important to have another test to confirm on the track.
“We are focused on turning, as everybody knows. So it looks like there was something interesting. It was clear because we put and we removed… We confirmed the feeling. But to confirm we need another track.”
Dovizioso was keen to stress the futility over analysing final test times in some detail. Ducati GP19s occupied three of the first five places (Jack Miller was fourth, Danilo Petrucci fifth) on Wednesday, but the Italian stressed this didn’t mean a great deal.
“Like always, and in the last two years, the tests are not important,” he said. “The lap time at the end of the day is not important, in every test. If you make the test in Qatar before the race it’s a bit more important.
“The quantity of tyres is not a lot. if you are in a factory team and you have a lot of stuff to try, you have to use the tyre to make the right test. So you don’t use the tyre to make the fastest test. That effects the final result.
“Like last year in the winter Valentino was so far but in the end fought for second and third position (in the championship). So the lap time at the end of the test are really not important.”
