Jorge Lorenzo will get his first taste of Ducati power on Tuesday at the Valencia MotoGP test and one Desmosedici GP allocated to him will come complete with aerodynamic wings even though they are banned next year.

A strange move or not so much? Works team boss Davide Tardozzi says not as he believes Lorenzo needs to understand where the bike has come from before he can propel it into the future.

“The winglets have been one of the hot topics this season together with the tyres and the single ECU. Ducati was the first manufacturer to introduce them and one by one all the other factory teams followed the example. It’s clear that they bring an advantage,” he told BSN at Valencia.

Without entering into the he said, she said that surrounded their eventual outlawing, Tardozzi explains in which direction the team’s engineers are working to find the same or similar benefits of the winglets without them.

“The wings represent an advantage in acceleration because they reduce the wheelying effect of the bike. The wings were the quickest and easiest solution, but now that they are banned starting from next season, we need to follow some other directions. From an aerodynamic point of view, the answer was the winglets. Now we will have to work on the setup to find a way to reduce the wheelie. The problem with the setup is that when you change something, you have a side effect on another part. We need to work on this in the winter test”.

This work is crucial and has to be done in the test. According to the 2017 rules, in fact, a team will have to present a fairing in the opening round in Qatar and throughout the season only one more can be used. So all the developing work is concentrated in the winter.

“On Tuesday, Jorge Lorenzo will test the Desmosedici with wings. Why? First of all we cannot simply take the wings off. We have to proceed step-by-step. The wings give us an advantage so we need to find a solution to replace them. Secondly, the 2017 bike is an evolution of the Desmosedici. Lorenzo needs to understand from where this bike comes. He has always ridden with another manufacturer. It will be interesting to know his comments. He can give us some advice or he can see things in a differently based on his experience.”

Tuesday and Wednesday in Valencia will be crucial because this two-day session will be Lorenzo’s only occasion with the factory teams until the IRTA Test in Sepang at the end of January. Each team in fact has five days of testing with the factory riders in addition to the IRTA test. Considering that Lorenzo is banned from any further testing in 2016, Ducati cannot use one day to test only with Andrea Dovizioso.

“We will test in Valencia and then the following week with Michele Pirro in Jerez. We will be back on track in Sepang for the IRTA test with the complete team, Casey Stoner included,” confirmed Tardozzi.

Casey Stoner will not test the 2017 bike in Valencia. “Casey is here and available to give advice to Lorenzo. He will follow him from the service road, he is doing this already, but he will not test the bike. It has no meaning. Now we are fully concentrated on Lorenzo because it’s him who will race next year. Lorenzo needs to understand the bike and step by step we will go in his direction.”

It’s clear that Ducati will work hard to build the bike around the five-time world champion. The target: get the world title that has gone missing for a decade.