Dovizioso happy with his day’s work at Motegi

Ducati Corse’s Andrea Dovizioso says that he is ‘happy with the way things went’ on Friday at Motegi, the Italian ending the day second fastest on the combined time sheets.

The Twin Ring Motegi is a track that has been a happy hunting ground for Ducati over the years. The Borgo Panigale squad have four wins to their name at the Japanese circuit, though the last of those came all the way back in 2010. Dovizioso has one win to his credit at the track in the 125cc class and qualified on pole for the 2014 race.

The Italian began the day in the best possible fashion, topping the time sheets with a 1m45.786s, going three tenths quicker than anyone else. Heading into the afternoon having already hit the ground running with set-up, the Italian spent much of the second session focussing on race runs on used soft rubber.

Dovizioso was happy with his pace on long runs, though admitted that he needs to work on managing the front tyre as the stop-and-go nature of the track works the front extremely hard. In the closing stages of FP2, Dovizioso fitted fresh slicks and went for a qualifying simulation. The Ducati rider produced a 1m45.204s to go second quickest.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, Dovizioso remains cautious as to where Ducati lie in the pecking order at Motegi. Half a second covered the top six at the end of FP2, but the Italian knows that there is still time to be found and is feeling comfortable on his Desmosedici GP16.

“I’m very happy with the way things went today, because we started off by immediately finding a good base for the rest of the weekend,” he said.

“For the first two exits in the afternoon, we ran with the soft tyre we had already used in FP1, and confirmed out pace. We still have to work on a few details because managing the front on this track, where you brake aggressively, is not easy. For the moment there are five of six of us who have a similar pace, and I think there is still some room for improvement. We’ll have to see who will work the best tomorrow, but in any case I’m really satisfied with my first day here at Motegi.”