Pole sitter Andrea Dovizioso has confirmed he will continue to use the new Ducati fairing after claiming his first MotoGP pole position of 2018 in Brno.
The Italian stormed to his first pole since Malaysia 2016 with a 1:54.689, just over a quarter of a second ahead of second placed Valentino Rossi. Pramac Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci yesterday tried a new fairing on his GP18 and today Dovizioso tried it on his factory bike. After securing his first pole in 18 months, the Italian confirmed he would keep the new fairing, even though he admits he isn’t sure of the full benefits of the fairing.
“It looks like we will use it tomorrow,” confirmed Dovizioso. “The difference is not clear, it’s always difficult when you try something like that.
“It’s difficult to understand exactly the difference. It looks a bit better on the breaking, maybe, but from the morning to the afternoon we change also the tyres. So we didn’t have a lot of time to make a real comparison, so it’s not clear the positive things, and if there is a negative things.”
Dovi spent a lot of time working on used tyres and looks a favourite for tomorrows race with his practice race pace. But it was his pace on the new soft tyre that saw him storm to pole. Despite the pole position, Dovi said that he was happier with the lap time than the pole position.
“I’m happier about the lap time that I did, than the pole position. I never did a lot of pole positions in my career, it’s not my style so I’m not too focused on that,” he said.
“But the way we did the pole position today is important. I didn’t have nobody in front of me and I was able to push really hard and make everything in the perfect way and make a really good lap time. It was very hot out there, it was difficult to be really fast and go under the ‘55. But at the end the bike work very well.
“I did after the first intermediate I saw a good intermediate and from that I decide to push really hard and the bike answer really good. I was able to brake really hard, be smooth and use the potential of the new soft. So this is confirmation of the good work we did in the weekend.
“We start in the first practice with a good speed, that help us a lot to be able to put a lot of laps on the rear tyre for the race, but it is the key. We did with two tyres more than the race distance, this is very important. So we did everything we could for the race, I don’t know if it will be enough but I have a good confidence."