Andrea Dovizioso - Ducati Team, 7th
“Speaking from a personal perspective, I’m fairly pleased with the day; all weekend it was very difficult to do a pace in the low 1:23s, so I’m satisfied that I managed to do it for the entire race. Obviously, we can’t be pleased with this result, as we were 30 seconds back, but it’s just further confirmation of our current gap. We couldn’t expect anything else today. We’re working a lot, but again, the bike is similar to the one we started the year with, so it couldn’t be otherwise. I’m not looking for excuses; it’s just the reality at this moment. To all the Ducati fans, I say be patient. We’re working as hard as we can to improve our competitiveness, but it’s not a situation that you can solve race by race or with simple changes to setup.”
Nicky Hayden - Ducati Team, 9th
“It certainly wasn’t the race we’d hoped for. I was having a good morning warm-up until I had a crash right at the end. Even though it was a small one, it damaged the frame, so it was best to switch to the other GP13 for the race. I hadn’t ridden that bike much, and I didn’t have the same feeling as with the other one, especially in terms of grip. In the beginning, every time I pushed, the rear would come around on me. It was a long, lonely race. We need to understand what happened, because we had a much better pace than that all weekend, especially with old tyres. It’s a shame because as usual, the guys really gave me their all, and they deserve better than that.”
Next stop, California!