After spending three days riding around in tenth place, Andrea Dovizioso must be wondering exactly what he has got himself into with the factory Ducati. The 2012 podium man was a full 2.2s off the pace of Pedrosa while the man he replaced sailed off towards the front.

It was clear from the start that Dovizioso knows there is work to do but the Malaysian test must have brough home exactly how much he has to do and how little time he has to do it.

“Yes, it was a difficult test but we didn’t expect it to be any different. We're here to improve the situation and everybody knows the level we are now so we have to improve. We tested as much stuff as we could, because we’re focused on improving the bike,” said the Italian.

“The gap to the others is big, and we pushed a lot to understand the bike. I gave a lot of feedback, maybe too much! We don’t know how the next test in Sepang will be. There’s too short a time between now and then, so it’s difficult to do something big in this time. We still have to decide which parts we can bring to the second test. Unfortunately, we need time to try something big.”