Dark clouds greeted the MotoGP riders yesterday morning at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit and the rain began to fall shortly before the start of the FP3 session. As a result, the two Ducati Team riders did not have a chance to improve their times from Friday and had to take part in Q1 early in the afternoon. Dovizioso immediately set an excellent time, but he was passed by Rossi and then Pedrosa in the final seconds of the session and finished third, missing out on access to Q2 by just a fraction. The Italian rider will start Sundays race from the fifth row of the grid in thirteenth place, while Jorge Lorenzo, sixth in Q1, will start from row 6 three places behind his team-mate.

The Argentina GP is scheduled to get underway  at 4 pm local time (21.00 CET).


Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1’49.488 (13th)

“Unfortunately this morning I wasn’t able to complete the FP3 session because it began to rain and so in the end I didn’t get into the top 10. In Q1, despite having set a good time, I ended up in third place in the final seconds of the session and it was a real pity because I’m sure that in Q2 we could have obtained a good position on the grid, which is very important here. If that’s the way it went, then it means that we still have to improve a lot of things, but even though I’m starting down the grid, I think we have every possibility of moving up and doing a good race.”

Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) – 1’50.310 (16th)

“It was a pity about today’s rain, because I’m sure we could have improved our position in dry conditions a lot. Unfortunately in both FP3 and Q1 we couldn’t take advantage of the improvements that we found with a new riding position on the bike, even though I know I still need time to get used to it. Tomorrow however it should be dry and let’s see if I can manage to put in a better performance in the race than I did in practice.”