It wasn’t a pleasant first day at Brno for the Ducati factory and Pramac riders.
Andrea Dovizioso, Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies replacement rider, Michele Pirro all suffered for grip issues, which left them all over a 1.
2 seconds and more adrift from Stefan Bradl.
Dovizioso’s problems were so severe that he was forced to use three rear soft tires, because he believed that the second one was defective, but the same problem re-represented itself also with the third, so he now knows it is a set up problem.
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“The afternoon session was very strange, because we suffered a big loss of grip.
Honestly, I thought there was something wrong with my bike because I didn’t expect such a big difference compared to this morning.
We tried a number of things in an effort to understand if there was some problem, so we weren’t able to follow the planned work program for the session.
Unfortunately, when the temperature rises, it affects us Ducati riders more than the others, and it becomes much more difficult to ride the bike well.
”Unfortunately Nicky Hayden’s grip issues were compounded by chattering.
The longer and more sweeping corners of the Brno creates the usual Ducati problem, the bike runs wide.
“It wasn’t a very positive day.
This morning we weren’t so far off, but in the afternoon I struggled with a lack of grip, problems turning, and chatter.
I also made some mistakes with my riding and was running wide.
Now we need to understand exactly where to go with the bike’s setup and try to do a much better job tomorrow,” said Hayden.
While team mate Ben Spies has undergone surgery and getting some heat from the Italian press because of Tweet that he posted the day before his operation, that was later cancelled, that made a reference to Carlo (allegedly Carlos Pernat, the team’s sporting director and manager to several GP riders) referencing powder and nose, Andrea Iannone was on track trying to pull his weight, despite a severely sore shoulder.
Iannone told the Italian media that he should stop for at least two races in order to recover, but said he can’t afford to miss any more rounds because he is working towards his ‘future’.
“I must say that my shoulder hurts a lot.
At Indy I was suffering with pain in the whole of my body, back and legs, but here I can feel a lot of pain just in the shoulder.
I think that the layout of the circuit has a big effect on all this, because there are a lot of second and third gear corners, and I’m struggling to stay on the bike.
In any case, we didn’t go bad, and I improved my time of this morning by seven-tenths of a second, getting closer to Nicky and Dovi and I lapped with a constant pace as well.
Today we did a great job and we’ve got some more ideas.
Over the distance I’m struggling a bit, the pain is not particularly strong but it’s there and I can’t ignore it.
This morning we did a weaker infiltration than at Indy but my shoulder is still pretty swollen.
It would be better to stop and rest, but that’s not what I want to do at the moment.
I want to do a lot of laps and also get ready for next season.
”Michele Pirro is riding the same Ducati machine he used at Le Mans and still has to find a set-up that will satisfy him as he’s been using the ‘laboratory bike’ more often.
“It was better this morning.
This afternoon, the higher temperatures caused the grip to drop.
The changes we made didn’t really help me, but we dedicated the day to finding the rhythm and the feeling with the bike.
At the moment, it’s simply a matter of continuing to ride, as quite a bit of time has passed since I’ve been on this bike.
I last used it at Le Mans; the bike that I ride in the tests may not be faster, but it’s more versatile on braking and corner entry.
I think I can do better tomorrow, and I’ll try to get closer to the other Ducatis,” commented Pirro.