CHECA AND THE DESMOSEDICI GP5 SET CRACKING PACE AT PHILLIP
ISLAND
 The
Spanish rider laps under the 2004 pole time. Team-mate Loris
Capirossi carries out back-to-back tests.
Phillip Island (Australia), 18 February 2005 – Cloudy
weather but ideal temperatures (28° air/33° track)
greeted the Ducati Marlboro Team riders at the Phillip Island
circuit, where the pace of the third winter testing session
is starting to heat up.
After his harmless crash yesterday, Carlos Checa set a cracking
pace today, recording the second quickest time of the day
in 1m29.94s. Checa’s time was lower than the pole mark
recorded a few months ago by Sete Gibernau, and it was set
with a new profile rear race tyre.
During his 80 laps today, Carlos also carried out suspension
set-up work on his Desmosedici GP5; he also made several outings
with the modified frame, receiving similar impressions to
when he tested the traditional frame, and working on different
front forks set-up.
“Today we again worked well and I’m really happy”
said Checa. “This morning we carried out a lot of testing
on the suspension set-up and in the afternoon I tested several
different rear tyres, some of which gave really good results”.
Loris Capirossi carried out numerous back-to-back tests during
his 74 laps of the track, the Italian’s best time being
1m30.53s. Capirossi lapped with both GP5 bikes at his disposal,
one with the same set-up used during the last tests at Sepang
and the other in race configuration, with a set-up very similar
to the one he used in last season’s Australian GP, but
Loris preferred the former.
“The back-to-back tests between the two set-ups enabled
me to understand a lot of things” commented Loris. “There
isn’t much difference between the times and I’m
not particularly worried about not being at the top of the
timesheets at the moment”.
The Desmosedici GP5 development and the Bridgestone tyre
tests are continuing positively, and despite it being the
first time that the new pairing has tested on the ultra-fast
and technical Phillip Island track, it is already bringing
positive results for the engineers of the two companies.
The Ducati Marlboro Team will conclude testing at Phillip
Island tomorrow Saturday 19 February, before moving to Doha
in Qatar from March 1-3, the final session before the official
IRTA testing sessions at Catalunya (March 18-20) and Jerez
(March 25-27).
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