This was to be the big technical question of this season. And it’s clear that she went pschitt. Honda, by doing what was necessary to ban wings on Grand Prix machines, declared at the time to anyone who would listen that we would not hear about these accessories for a long time. Enough to send Ducati back to his dear studies. At the fourth meeting of the year, where are we? Two manufacturers have not yet approved their new fairing. Honda and… Ducati.
Playing with the aerodynamics of the fairings is legally possible but under two conditions: no more protruding fins and only two developments per year. We were waiting for Ducati on the subject. Precursors in this field, the Reds were to show us an imagination greater than censorship.
We saw a rear case which remains a mystery and we saw an original fairing called a hamster head. But not a winner's face. Because it will never be approved. Ducati threw it in the trash and it's Paolo Ciabatti himself who announced it on crash.net : " the fairing seen in Qatar during testing and in Jerez during private testing will never be used in racing. It makes us lose too much top speed. We're working on something different now ».
On a previously unforgiving Jerez track like Desmosedici, Jorge Lorenzo et Andrea Dovizioso finished third and fifth in the Spanish Grand Prix. Never has a Ducati been on the podium in Andalusia since Nicky Hayden in 2011. All with a GP17 with a conventional fairing.
