Britain's Cal Crutchlow has found no huge leap forward from the works Ducati GP13 and GP14 MotoGP bikes during his first shakedown of the new bike at Sepang but says the 2014-spec Desmodedici is better in a few areas.
The former footballer brushed off a slow-speed crash in Malaysia to set the 14th fastest time, some 2.5s off the pace, but said he will start with a completely different setup tomorrow.
"We spend the morning with the GP13 and the afternoon with the GP14. In this moment, I don't see a massive difference but there are positives with both. We need to take one piece off one bike and one piece off another and try and build a bit of a bike from that," said Crutchlow, speaking at Sepang.
"The bikes are very similar. It is not like we have come here with the engine upside down. It just looks a little different. Gigi has only been in his office for a few months, you can't build a motorcycle in this time. We expected a few changes, which we have, in some areas it is a little better. We had some teething problems today as it is the first run with this bike and we had to wait a while in the middle of day to check some things.
"The GP13 is stopping a little better than the 14 bike but the 14 seems to turn in a little better. The characteristics of the bikes are very similar. In Valencia, I said the turning was one of the worst things and the wheelie, and it seems the 14 is better for that. I only managed three laps in a row with the teething problems. Gigi was trying a strategy to get some information. You can't take too much from it."
Crutchlow had a small crash in the session after some gearchange settings caused an upset but he remains upbeat that the team will solve some of the problems.
"I just span round in a circle. We had a small issue with the gearchange and it upset the bike and I just literally fell down on the older bike. I went faster on the older bike but it was a day about riding a bike again instead of a bicycle.
"We have some work to do, clearly, but I am not so worried. We worked with two sets of tyres all day, we changed after the crash and I kept them. We tried an electronic setting that Gigi wanted, but I didn't have to go fast for this. Tomorrow is a different day and we have a lot more we want to try.
"I would like a big jump, laptime wise. But how it will come I don't really know. I think characteristically with the Ducati this has been the worst circuit for them, so to come testing here is crucial, to try things and give Gigi the information from here. We can see so many things on the data and even if they watch on the track compared to other manufacturers.
"If you can solve problems here, because the grip is low, it normally works at every circuit. This is the plan, we need to keep working, we have to start again tomorrow with a completely different setup."
