Friday saw an excellent start to the Czech GP weekend for Andrea Dovizioso, who headed the timesheets on day 1 of practice at the Automotodrom Brno. After finishing the morning’s FP1 session in the rain in thirteenth place, the Italian rider demonstrated he has an excellent feeling with his Desmosedici GP on the ups and downs of the Moravian circuit and he ended the second session, which was completely dry towards the end, on the top of the stack with a time of 1’56.332.

Lying in a provisional fifteenth place was Jorge Lorenzo, who this morning had been very competitive on the wet track when he set third quickest time. In the afternoon, after doing a few laps on his ‘regular’ bike, the Spanish rider then debuted a new fairing with an innovative aero package, finishing the day in fifteenth place with a time of 1’57.637.


Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’56.332 (1st)

“Today went very well because we were able to carry out a lot of tests: this morning we made a comparison between the medium and the soft rain tyres and we already have feedback in view of the race. This afternoon, despite the limited time available on a totally dry surface, we managed to try the new material but above all we confirmed our good pace and this always makes the difference during the weekend. Tomorrow we will continue to work on the other details because it should be dry all day.”

Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 1’57.637 (15th)

“It was a positive day and I’m sure that we still have room for improvement. This morning in the wet, the feelings were good, the grip was good and the front had very good stability. For sure I could have pushed harder and improved my time. This means that we are ready if it rains during the race on Sunday, and this is very positive. In the afternoon we tried the new fairing and even though my final classification today was not what we hoped for, I’m really satisfied. They’ve done a great job in Ducati Corse! In the end I didn’t use the new tyre, which would have allowed me to improve my time, but the most important thing was to understand the behaviour of the bike in this new configuration. We probably lose a bit in top speed, but by working well on the setting I’m sure that the new fairing has a lot of potential.”