After the first two free practice sessions for this weekend’s British GP at the Silverstone circuit, both Ducati Team riders were classified inside the top ten, with Dovizioso in sixth place and Petrucci tenth.
Dovizioso, also sixth in the morning’s FP1 session, improved his time in the afternoon to lap in 2’00.110 and confirm his position. Petrucci, ninth in the morning, set a time of 2’00.428 in FP2 to conclude the opening day in tenth place.
Andrea Dovizioso (#04 Ducati Team) – 2’00.110 (6th)
“It’s nice to race here at Silverstone with the new asphalt and now the track is in a much better condition than last year. I’ve got a good feeling with my Desmosedici GP but we’ve still got a lot of work to do. In the afternoon the temperature went up considerably and it looks like tomorrow and Sunday it could be even warmer so it’ll be important to understand tomorrow what tyre choice to make. Today we focussed mainly on set-up work: we’ve improved some aspects but I’m sure there’s still some more margin. As I expected, there are a lot of quick riders out there, with a fast pace as well, but it’s still too early to see who is looking good for the race.”
Danilo Petrucci (#9 Ducati Team) – 2’00.428 (10th)
“I’m quite satisfied, above all for the feeling that I had this morning. The track with the new asphalt is in an excellent condition, and in the afternoon we did some tyre testing to see which direction to take tomorrow and Sunday. Unfortunately, at the end of the session I wasn’t able to make the best use of the soft tyre to do a better lap time, unlike the other riders. We’ve still got some work to do to finalize a few details and above all see which tyre to choose for the race, but all in all it’s been a positive start.”
The Ducati riders will be back out on track tomorrow, Saturday 24th August, at 10.55 (CET) for the third free practice session, while qualifying will be held after FP4 starting from 15.10 (CET).
