Avintia Racing’s Hector Barbera said that his first day as a factory Ducati rider was ‘very special’ as he got to grips with the Desmosedici GP16 he will ride this weekend in place of the injured Andrea Iannone, as well as next season in Avintia colours.
The Spaniard was called up last-minute on Thursday to ditch his GP14.2 for the current full factory prototype after Iannone withdrew from the event on the advise of his doctors in order to continue his recovery from a T3 vertebra fracture. Ducati’s other test rider, Michele Pirro, was unavailable as he is testing next year’s Desmosedici at Valencia this week.
The day started off positively for Barbera. As the GP16 is two generations evolved from his normal ride, the Spaniard spent the morning session just getting to grips with the bike. At the end of FP1, Barbera was 10th fastest on a 1m46.853 and just over a second down on teammate Andrea Dovizioso at the top of the time sheets.
This afternoon’s practice was a slightly more difficult affair for the former 125cc Motegi winner. Trying the harder front tyre, Barbera lost some feeling with the front-end and had to try several different set-up modifications to regain his confidence on the bike. Luckily, the team managed to fix the issue and his confidence returned.
Barbera took the chequered flag in 14th at the end of FP2 with a best lap of 1m46.876s. Though the gap to Dovizioso opened up to 1.6 seconds in FP2, the Spaniard heads into tomorrow feeling optimistic now that he has gathered a lot of ‘useful’ data.
“Today was a very special day for me, because for the first time I stepped onto the Desmosedici GP 2016 I will race next year,” an excited Barbera stated.
“At first it all felt good, but when I started to use the harder front tyre I lost a bit of feeling and was unable to push hard. We did a few different tests with the settings and towards the end of FP2 the feeling came back again, but the most important thing is that I feel good with the bike, which goes really well as Dovi showed today. In any case we picked up a lot of useful information that will allow us to work well tomorrow.”
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