All in a day’s work? It seemed so for Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) as action opened in Qatar, with the Italian over three tenths clear at the top and under the race lap record set by new teammate Jorge Lorenzo on different machinery in the race last year.
‘DesmoDovi’ put in 36 laps as work for the Borgo Panigale factory continued, setting a best of 1:54.819. There were no new aero-fairings breaking cover for the team in red, but hints were dropped that Saturday could see some interesting technical innovations unleashed.
Andrea Dovizioso, P11: “In this first day of testing at Losail I had a really good feeling with my Desmosedici GP, better than I had expected, and the sensations were positive just like in Malaysia. We tried several different types of interesting set-up, which gave us some important feedback. Today everyone was very quick, but in any case I was able to set my time quite easily. We know we still have to improve certain aspects, but to start the tests in this way helps us a lot for the work that we have to do in the next couple of days.”