Ducati Gradually Improving But Still Struggling

The Ducati Team started its preparation for this weekend's Indianapolis Grand Prix, which will take at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, also known as the Brickyard.

Last night's rainstorm reduced the asphalt’s grip level, the track conditions gradually improved throughout the day. In the second session, both Ducati riders were considerably faster than they had been in the first session, lapping at around the pace of the second group. The American ended the day ninth and his Italian team mate tenth. For both Ducati riders, the goal for tomorrow is to improve the bike’s handling in corners and to reduce the gap to the front.

Nicky Hayden
“It’s nice to be back with the team and on the bike. This morning things went pretty well. With the rain last night, it took a while to dry out the track and get some rubber down, but we got going okay. This afternoon we tried a couple of things, but we didn’t make a big step like we had hoped. We got some more grip in the rear, but then we started to push the front worse. We improved by a second, but everyone else improved a lot more. Some of these corners are really connected, and it’s important to get the bike to turn, because if you mess up the first one, the problem gets exaggerated. We need to understand why we’re having this turning issue and hopefully do a good step tomorrow.”

Valentino Rossi
“We lowered our time by two seconds in the afternoon because the track’s grip was improving lap by lap, and I think we’ll see the same tomorrow. The feeling of riding is better compared to last year, but we’re still having a very hard time with corner entry, especially in the lefthanders. We’re also losing a lot on the exits of the two slow corners. This afternoon, I used the same hard tyre the whole time in order to check its performance after many laps, because I don’t think it will be possible to do the whole race with the soft. Anyway, tomorrow we’ll try it. We have a number of things to sort out, but the second group isn’t far off.”

Press release courtesy of Ducati Team.