Andrea Dovizioso sixth and Jorge Lorenzo eleventh at the end of first day of practice for the GP of the Americas at Austin

The two Ducati Team riders - Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo - finished the first day of practice action for the GP of the Americas in sixth and eleventh place respectively.

Despite cloudy skies in the morning, the first two practice sessions were held on a dry track and FP1 concluded with Dovizioso third and Lorenzo sixth after the 45-minute run.

In the early afternoon the MotoGP riders again went out on track for 45 minutes and everyone was able to improve the times set in the morning: Dovizioso finished the session with a best lap of 2’04.830, which put him in sixth place, while Lorenzo finished in eleventh place with a time of 2’05.282.


Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 2’04.830 (6th)

“It was a bit of an unusual day because we found a track that was quite different from last year. There are a lot of dips in it and so everything became rather complicated: it’s not easy to find the right set-up because there isn’t much grip, you can’t push very hard on the front, and in any case we must also consider tyre wear for the race. All in all, despite the overall feeling not being that great, we are not bad at all for pace. At this moment there is no doubt that Viñales and Marquez have a lot more pace, but after them we are all in there together. Tomorrow the temperature should be a bit lower than today, and we will try and take advantage of the situation and work with the race in mind.”

Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati Team #99) - 2’05.282 (11th)

“Even though my position is not very good and for the moment I am outside the top 10, I am quite happy. We still have tomorrow morning’s FP3 session to play with, but the most important thing is that my feeling with the Desmosedici has improved a lot from Argentina. The new riding position gives me a lot more confidence and feels safer in corner entry and in general I feel better on the bike. In the end we are not far off fourth or fifth place and tomorrow I hope to make another step forward.”