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Ductalk: What's Up In The World Of Ducati
Ducati News Roundup Curated by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Following Ducati’s decision to delay the debut of its GP15 until February, many have assumed the all-new bike will be at both Malaysian MotoGP tests.... Read more HERE
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
“Marc admitted the error and immediately came to apologise” - Andrea Iannone..
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Impressive performance for Davide Giugliano and the Ducati Superbike Team in Sepang Superpole
For the story and photo gallery link click HERE
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For the rest and the riders quotes, click HERE
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Tomorrow will be the third and final day of these first 2014 season tests. For the full photo Gallery click HERE
The second day of pre-season IRTA testing at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia saw progress being made by both Ducati Team riders, Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow, who both tested only the GP14′s.
For the rest of the rider quotes click HERE
Scooped by Vicki Smith for Ducati.net |
Ducati's Cal Crutchlow was coy when quizzed on speculation the manufacturer was set to enter the MotoGP 'Open' class but admitted he could see 'positives' in making the change.
Crutchlow was speaking on the first day of the official Sepang MotoGP test, where he tested both the GP13 and GP14 versions of the Desmosedici.
The British star jokingly dodged a question from reporters over the potential for a switch to the 'Open' rules this season, saying: “I know nothing about it. Is there an Open class?”
For the rest click HERE
Looking forward to a year of Full Throttle Cal Crutchlow both on the bike and maybe even more, in the press room...
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The official MotoGP test does not get underway until Tuesday, but Ducati began a private test with its development team at the Sepang circuit today.
For the rest click HERE
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Ducati Team concludes Sepang test with sunny weather and busy schedule
Despite a negative weather forecast, the final day of the Sepang test was the only one of the three not affected by rain. Valentino Rossi stayed on the track until the last minute in order to complete as much work as possible for the Ducati engineers, who continue working on the development of the GP12. As for Nicky Hayden, despite still not being in perfect physical condition, he continued testing into the afternoon, and on his very last exit, he had a harmless low-speed fall in Turn 1.
Both riders found the new electronics that were introduced at this test to be a breakthrough, although they didn’t find the ideal setup for improving their lap times and ended the day in tenth and eleventh positions. Still, they both reduced their gap to the front considerably compared to the first test.
The next winter test is scheduled for March 23-25 at the Spanish Jerez circuit.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) 10th, 2:01.550 (57 laps)
“One small positive note to the day is that we reduced the gap to the front a little bit. It was 1.2 seconds, and now it’s 1 second. It’s also nice that the new electronics work well, but it hurts being down on the timesheets compared to all the others. We tried a bunch of things in order to take a step forward from the first test, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do it and were actually worse. It was harder for me to ride well compared to three weeks ago, especially my corner speed. It’s true that this test was more difficult in terms of weather and track conditions, but it seemed to affect us more than the others. Honestly, I expected to do better than tenth. We were also unfortunate because at the best part of the day, when I did a 2:01.5 and we had some tyres to try to lower the time further, we had a problem with the fork that cost us some time. Maybe without that we would have cut another three or four tenths and been further up, but our pace is still about seven tenths back. Honestly, that’s not a huge amount, but anyway we’re still behind. We’re not pleased with how it went this time, but we have to try and work hard and see what happens at Jerez, where the track is very different than this one, with much different weather and temperatures. We’ll see how we do there.”
Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) 11th, 2:01.609 (44 laps)
“Of course I would prefer to have been closer to the front, but it’s my first real test of the year. The bike feels better on braking and into the corner, and I like the feedback it gives me. Also, the lap times don’t seem as affected when the track gets hot and greasy. We need to work on some chatter and on corner exits. We have plenty of ideas, as there are a lot of things we didn’t get to try this week because of the weather. Toward the end, I lost the front end in Turn 1 and crashed, but it was an easy one and I’m fine. I’m happy with how my shoulder is coming along. I hope that with three more weeks of recovering and rehab, it should be close to 100 per cent for Jerez.”
Filippo Preziosi (General Manager, Ducati Corse)
“It was sunny for the last day of the Sepang test, and after almost completely losing the first two days due to rain, we had to concentrate a lot of work into a relatively short time. Clearly, situations like that make it more difficult to achieve maximum performance because the setup changes continuously. Today Valentino is tenth and Nicky is eleventh, and obviously we would prefer to be further up. Anyway, they both liked the new electronics package that we had for this test. We’ll keep working hard between now and the next test at Jerez, where we’ll try to put everything we have together and optimize it.”
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Ducati arrived in Malaysia with both Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden still not at 100% fitness following their respective post Sepang 1 surgeries, but that didn’t keep Hayden from being the fastest Ducati rider on track and pipping his own team mate by a little more than one tenth of second and finishing in 6th spot on the first day.
Despite an early start by both riders, a dirty track and then the rain storm interrupted their testing schedule without Rossi having tested the upgraded electronics package that the test team tried out during the private test a Jerez last week, leaving the Italian in the 8th spot with the usual almost 1.5 second gap from the top of charts.
Rossi also debuted his graphics on the new and more aerodynamic AGV helmet that also includes a tribute to the late Marco Simoncelli.
Nicky Hayden - 2:03.132 (32 laps)
“I’m obviously still not at 100 percent, but considering I had shoulder surgery three weeks ago, it went better than I expected. I felt much better than at the last test and was able to give some good feedback, so I owe a big thanks to Dr Ting and his staff. This is the first time I could really ride this bike well, and I enjoyed it....more
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Valentino Rossi believes the first day of Sepang testing was largely a waste for him due to the track and weather conditions, and a tactical error...
The former champion was only eighth quickest on his Ducati, as the field managed limited dry running before rain hit the Malaysian venue.
"It's a bad day because we didn't have enough time for our work," Rossi told the official MotoGP website.
"We were also a little bit unlucky because this morning I went out very, very early but the condition of the track was bad - dirty and slippery from the cars of last week. When the conditions became better, we already had more than 20 laps on the tyre. We decided to wait for the afternoon to use the other good tyre but unfortunately the afternoon had rain....more
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Rossi will use this week’s second Sepang test in Malaysia to concentrate on new electronics aimed at improving stability under acceleration with the radical new Ducati GP12 machine.
Rossi and team-mate Nicky Hayden struggled with corner exit handling during the first Sepang test earlier this month but both will have new electronics tested by development rider Franco Battaini in Jerez last week at their disposal....more