With the trials and tribulations of Indianapolis behind them, the Ducati Marlboro kicked of this weekend with Free Practice 1 at the Misano Circuit. And things didn”t go as smoothly as they would have hoped. With both Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner struggling to get their bikes setup for the demands of the circuit. As a result the pair finished 7th and 8th respectively.
Hayden wasn’t a happy man after the session. “That wasn’t the smoothest session we ever had and I’m losing a lot on T3. I hoped to start out a bit closer to the top than that.” said Nicky “We need to look for some tenths, maybe by finding some better turning in the front and also adjusting the gearbox a bit better.”
“To be honest it’s not one big area we have to improve very much but small improvements in a few different areas. We also had a little issue with the fairing, which came a bit loose and my leathers got caught on it so I had to get back to the pit. We were trying something and after that I had basically one chance to make a good lap so we are not sure it is the right direction, which was a bit of a bummer. We are going to try it again tomorrow morning but this is a big weekend for us and we will try to move up the order.”
Casey Stoner wasn’t much happier, struggling here due to missing last years race due to illness. “That was a difficult session for us, basically because we didn’t have any information from last year because I didn’t race here. The characteristics of the current engine are very different to the one we used in 2008 so it requires a completely different gearbox set-up and obviously that affects a lot of different things.”
“We took a bit of a shot in the dark with what we thought would work but unfortunately it wasn’t quite right and we had to spend a lot of time today making adjustments. Hopefully the data we gathered can give us a much better idea of where to start from tomorrow and I’m sure we can quickly close the gap to the guys at the top. It is too early to worry but we need to make a lot of progress in the sessions that remain before what is a very important race for everybody at Ducati.”
