Fabio Di Giannantonio finally completed his first real day of testing of the year, having missed the entire pre-season, and was satisfied with a new product from Ducati.
In the VR46 team box, there was only one driver for the first official test of the season. Fabio Di Giannantonio was indeed the only one riding this Monday, Franco Morbidelli is resting to recover from his neck injury which he contracted following a violent fall during the race on Sunday. The #49 rider had a lot to do, between testing some of Ducati's new features and his own work with the team.
It must be said that this was his first full day of testing this year, as he had missed the entire pre-season after crashing on the first day of winter testing last February and fracturing his left collarbone. This test in Jerez was therefore an opportunity to finally take the time to work on certain things in depth.
“We worked a lot on our base setup. Since I wasn’t able to do the pre-season, today was actually my first full day of testing this year with my chief mechanic and my electronics engineer. It was really important for us to get to know each other better. The goal was to understand the direction we need to take in order to have a solid base. That’s something we missed in the race. We worked on our race pace, rather than the time attack.”, did he declare.
The VR46 team being closely linked to Ducati, Di Giannantonio tried some new things, and was delighted with one of them. "We've had some new developments from Ducati and I have to say that one of them suits my riding style particularly well. I hope to use it at Le Mans.", he told GP OneAlthough he has not provided any details on this development, it will probably be possible to find out more at the French Grand Prix next week.
The Italian rider finished tenth in the combined times, even though the classification was not important to him, but he was nevertheless the victim of a high-speed fall, which fortunately had no consequences: "I crashed because of the strong wind. I tried to brake as usual, but I lost the front end. It took me a second to realize what had happened. Luckily, even though it was fast, I didn't hurt myself."
This test nevertheless ended positively, Di Giannantonio not having been looking for real modifications to his Ducati. "We don't need any big changes as I feel good on the bike and I have confidence. I just need to maximize my performance.", he added.
