Ducati searching for the right direction at Misano

The first day of practice showed off the great conditions for motorcycle racing: very high temperatures, high humidity and the sun high in the sky.

Valentino and Nicky are working to find the right setup for such a slippery track. Towards the end of the second session, Rossi put together a decent series of laps on the soft tyre. In qualifying, both riders will work to improve their settings ahead of the grid.

Valentino Rossi (#46)

Fortunately, I managed to put together two or three good laps towards the end of the session, which moved me up a few positions.

We have been pushing because what we want is to ride on the hard tyre so we can work on the race, but unfortunately, after a promising start, I struggled to find a rhythm and improve it. We lose the rear end, especially when the bike is leaned over, which is why we fitted the soft tyre at the end of the session.

Today I set a 1:35.3, but tomorrow I will try to take at least half a second off, and we will work on improving the feeling from the front under braking.

We need to start from the base setting we used at Brno and Laguna, and make some changes on the second bike.

Nicky Hayden (#69)

Clearly this is not what we expected to do here. I like this track, but it seems that whenever I come here, it is hard to go fast.

Basically, I force the front end on corner entry and I can’t stop it. My ideal lap time would be 1:35.0, but I can’t be consistent over several laps.

The track is not bad, but it is very hot and slippery, and it also has some bumps. These things don’t work in my favour with this bike. We definitely don’t have it quite right yet, but we will try different things tomorrow.