Andrea Dovizioso will be postponing his vacation for a few days as he’s heading to the Misano race circuit for still another test session.
The Ducati test team, with Michele Pirro, is already at the Italian circuit and they’ll be there until July 25th trying to find some sort of solution for the ailing GP13.
At Laguna Seca, a frustrated Dovizioso finished 9th, while using the new frame, that he requested after the previous Misano test – and was unable to test/use during the Sachsenring GP, because of a crash on Friday.
Dovizioso finished +34.
129 seconds from Marquez on the shortest track on the calendar.
With the championship already at its halfway point, it looks like Ducati has no revolutionary pieces to give to their riders, to a least partially cut the huge performance gap that they continue to face.
A rather demoralized Andrea Dovizioso said, “At Laguna Seca I tried to push and go under 1.
23, but wasn’t able to do that lap time, and Nicky had exactly the same rhythm.
It was hard, after three laps we had tire wear, and I could have never have done a 1.
22, so I lost contact with Cal’s group.
I tried my best to be constant, but I wasn’t fast enough.
On Thursday we’ll be testing at Misano and we have some new things to try out, but I don’t think that they will be able to completely turn around our situation.
I think that it will difficult to change something for the next round and I don’t know whether we’ll be able to reduce the gap before the end of the season.
” If with Valentino Rossi, Ducati pulled out all stops trying to help the Italian, we can also say that Ducati/Audi are doing same with Andrea Dovizioso.
It seems that every month the test team is out on track trying to find a solution, but with main sponsor Phillip Morris – according to rumors- having yet to renew their option for 2014 with the factory team, the situation looks bleaker every day.
Who knows if Cal Crutchlow – who is strongly tipped (despite his denials)- to ride for the Italian manufacturer in 2014 – could help turn the situation around.