A few changes on one Desmosedici have been making headlines of late – Jorge Lorenzo’s (Ducati Team) ergonomically-driven changes to his fuel tank – but there were a few more on show at the TT Circuit Assen, chiefly with the chassis.
Sporting carbon additions – that’s to say, the chassis itself isn’t new, more updated – Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) had the innovation on a bike in each of their garages. Petrucci was also working on the chassis at the test after the Catalan GP, but had aluminium parts at Assen.
For ‘Petrux’, it remains a work in progress: “I did only one run, three or four laps with the new chassis. But it’s not a new chassis, it’s a different mounting but I don’t know what the difference is because they don’t tell me!”
He says he’ll try it again tomorrow to work on it more, something likely also in the plan for ‘DesmoDovi’ after the factory rider tried out the carbon version – and was definitively positive.
“The bike is a bit more stable, I have a good feeling,” says Dovizioso of the carbon-reinforced version. “I didn’t test it a lot but today there was wind on the back straight and a lot of movement, and the bike was a bit better. So that’s good!”
It is, and teammate Lorenzo will be another on track with it tomorrow. The Italian and Catalan GP winner was struggling with stability on Day 1, and intends to work more with the update on Saturday after suffering a problem on an exit on Friday – encouraged by teammate Dovizioso’s positive reports.
FP3 could see more carbon-reinforced action from the Ducati guys from 9:55am (GMT +2).