Ends with Petrucci fourth and Dovizioso eleventh.
Completed the first official 2020 MotoGP test at Sepang in Malaysia two weeks ago, the Ducati Team riders were back in action today at Losail for the last three days of testing ahead of the start of the Championship, at the same race venue in Qatar in fifteen days.
The opening day of the last pre-season test that featured bright skies and temperatures around 25 degrees allowed the Italian squad to resume the development program of the Desmosedici GP20 focusing mainly on testing new components and improving the bike setup for the race.
The first Ducati Team rider to hit the track, right a few minutes after the opening of the pit line at 1 PM local time, has been Danilo Petrucci, the fourth fastest today. The rider from Terni put in a total of 41 laps and clocked his fastest lap time in 1:54.634 on the last minutes of the day using a soft tire.
Andrea Dovizioso closed in 11th position with the fastest lap in 1:55.308, only 0.654 seconds off his teammate. The rider from Forlì, who suffered a small crash at Turn 8 towards the end of the day, has declared to be satisfied with his first day of testing in Qatar, as he was able to find a good feeling with his Desmosedici GP20 and a solid base to continue his preparations for the opening MotoGP Grand Prix of the year.
Tomorrow Petrucci and Dovizioso will be back out on track for the second day of Qatar Test with the other seven hours of free practices available from 1 PM till 8 PM local time (CET +2.00).
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 1:54.634 (4º)
“It has been a first complicated day of testing. Unfortunately, some small issues prevented us from taking full advantage of the track time available today. Despite that, the feeling with the bike is good, and now we only need to run constantly to get further confirmations on our work. I am quite happy with the behaviour of the Desmosedici even if there are still a few aspects that we need to improve, but I hope tomorrow we will be able to take a further step forward”.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 1:55.308 (11º)
“I am quite satisfied with today because we were able to find a good feeling with the bike, which was better than the one I had in Malaysia. We did a few tests, and all of them were positives. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete the program that we had for today, but in general, we had a good pace, and we were able to set the fastest lap time with a medium compound tyre that had already done seventeen laps. Shame only, that I had a small crash towards the end of the session, that didn’t allow us to complete an interesting test”.
