It is only the first test of the pre season but the Ducatis are half a step above Honda and Yamaha, their main rivals for the championship.
They sent a warning during the last season and with Andrea Dovizioso as the head of the group, they fought hand to hand with Marc Márquez until the last championship race. He was close to the Italian but the Honda did not fail. With Jorge Lorenzo already adapted to his new bike, 2018 is another great opportunity to retake the throne of MotoGP.
The sensations at the moment, are not bad. The results of these first three days of testing in Sepang have placed the Ducati as the fastest of the triangle formed with Honda and Yamaha. The pace shown at one lap is very good. It became clear when Lorenzo scored the fastest record of the Malaysian circuit. Precisely the Spanish improved in almost a second his best record obtained in the tests of last year.
In race pace, things get closer. Ducati shot on average a little more than one tenth per lap faster than the Honda and two tenths faster than the Yamaha. Although it is very premature to come in conclusions, Ducati is on the right track.
Their development program for Sepang has confirmed that they have a motorcycle that solves the problems of last year. Better braking, more stability of the bike and improvement of the engine. Casey Stoner, who tested the bike of Borgo Panigale’s firm before Lorenzo and Dovizioso, already adviced of that: “I only have positive comments. We have some changes in the engine, with the maps, and a quite different chassis. It gives us more information and we can better feel how the bike supports the ground, something we had looked for in recent years”, commented Stoner.
Ducati made the decision to prevent Casey Stoner from exchanging information with Lorenzo and Andrea before they got on the bike for the first time. With this, they tried to avoid the formation of preconceived ideas and that the pilots tested for the first time the Desmosedici GP18 with a clean mind. The subject has not gone wrong.
