Before leaving the Valencia circuit, we did our traditional tour of the paddock to say goodbye to everyone and, when leaving the press room for good, Wednesday evening after dark, we ran into Carlo Pernat again , one of the essential pillars of the Grand Prix world.
The opportunity to complete our previous interviews (not yet broadcast) with a mini preview of the 2017 season. Andrea Iannone's agent wanted to add a caveat...
Carlo, everything suggests that we are going to have an incredible 2017 season, right? Vinales very impressive and Lorenzo too, only a tenth yesterday on a Ducati which we thought was more difficult to ride than his Yamaha…
Charles Pernat : “Okay, so... the Ducati/Lorenzo question after watching all the times for two days... Before these tests, we were especially afraid of the impact (editor's note: consequences of the meeting?) of Lorenzo with Ducati, because we still reminiscent of the history of Valentino's impact with Ducati. And all the Ducati people were scared and trembling a little, because Ducati “is our bike, it’s our history”. But history is history, even if it was an incredible thing.
But this is the present. The beginning wasn't bad, not bad. Today is the second day and it's probably even more important because you have to do something extra. I looked at the times carefully, especially since Lorenzo made two or three attacks today, and he is 7 tenths behind the first.
With Yamaha, he did 1.29.5, and today, 1.30.7 with the Ducati, or 1,2 seconds slower.
Vinales rode very well, you saw, and Iannone, despite two falls, did the same time as he did with Ducati. Lorenzo is 3 tenths slower than his teammate, and two and a half tenths than Iannone. So I say “ok, but be careful” because everything is not positive. Ok, we were afraid of the impact, and it didn't go bad, but the second day, if you look at the times and everything..."
When you say impact, do you think of Rossi who in three laps understood that he had made a mistake by signing for Ducati?
" Well done ! Exactly ! The first day it wasn't like that and everything was beautiful, but the second day... Today it's not good.
30.7 instead of 29.2… I don’t know. Dovizioso is better, Iannone is better… I don’t know.
Even Gigi isn't very happy. He expected something more from this second day. Something better than the first day. »
But his adaptation on the first day was magnificent, all the same…
“Ah yes, but the second… So be careful not to say that everything is very positive. It’s positive, “but”! The second day, honestly, it's like this. »
