Troy Bayliss feels he is slowly getting to grips with the current Ducati Panigale despite getting limited track time on Friday at Phillip Island. The three-time champion, standing in for the injured Davide Giugliano, only completed three laps in FP1 due to a technical problem but after a more productive second session, Bayliss says he is starting to grow in confidence.
“I think I’ve only done about 19 laps all up. We lost almost the whole session this morning due to a technical issue which was a pity, but then this afternoon we were able to make some progress and I really started to feel good on the bike. I’m not feeling very confident with the back of the bike right now, in maximum lean, as there’s some sliding there, but I’m sure we’ll be able to sort that out tomorrow. I can say that we’re definitely making progress. There’s a lot we still need to do tomorrow of course, but we’re taking baby steps and we’re getting there. The important thing is that I’m really enjoying riding the bike and overall I’m very happy for the ‘short’ Friday I’ve had.”
Teammate Chaz Davies was eighth fastest and although he was content with his day, the Welshman is still looking to regain the feeling he had in testing earlier this week.
“Things haven’t gone too badly today. I think that we’ve made some progress with regard to race set-up and are continuing to look for small improvements across certain areas, as we were doing during the tests. I don’t feel like the bike is turning well enough through a couple of the tighter turns but apart from that the bike seems reasonably stable. We need to work on grip in the final corner as the feeling hasn’t been as good as it was in testing but we’ll continue to work on that tomorrow…”
