DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM SUCCESSFULLY WRAPS UP FIRST 2006 WINTER
TEST.
Loris Capirossi and Sete Gibernau both hit the front on
final day of three-day test at Sepang.
Sepang (Malaysia), Wednesday 25 January 2006 - The tropical
rainstorm that put paid to yesterday's session for all the
MotoGP teams present at Sepang made way for excellent weather
for the final day of testing.
The Ducati Marlboro Team engineers and riders were able to
put in a full day's work and Loris Capirossi and Sete Gibernau
ended up at the top of the unofficial timesheets, both on
race and on qualifying tyres.
Sete Gibernau worked hard to reach a total feeling with his
Ducati. The Spanish rider, after getting to grips with the
GP6, today also completed six laps with the GP5, confirming
yesterday's impressions from his team-mate.
With the GP6 successfully completing its roll-out test, the
natural life-cycle of the Ducati Desmosedici GP5 has now come
to an end at the Sepang track, where Capirossi set pole and
took the win in the 2005 Malaysian GP.
Sete Gibernau (73 laps - 2m01.83s race, 2m01.03s
qualifying)
"My settling-in period with the team, the bike and the
tyres is continuing and I am increasingly satisfied with the
choice that I have made. Today I felt pretty good on the GP6
and I also wanted to do a few laps on the GP5, which I have
never tried, to make a back-to-back test. This confirmed what
Loris, who knows the bike well, had said yesterday: the GP5
is a good bike but the GP6 has more development potential
and from now onwards we are only going to use that bike. For
the first time I used Bridgestone's qualifying tyres and they
gave me a good feeling. We've still got a lot of work to do
to be at 100% but we are on the right path".
On the final day of the session, Loris Capirossi focussed
on getting through an intense programme of tyre testing, accumulating
information that will be useful for the next session scheduled
for Sepang.
Loris Capirossi (76 laps - 2m01.64s race, 2m01.08s
qualifying)
"We can also be satisfied with today's performance. The
weather was good all day and we were able to do all the scheduled
tyre testing. Bridgestone are working well and we have gathered
a lot of useful information for the next test session here
at Sepang. I also tried the new qualifying tyres, which have
a good potential. I like the GP6 more and more and I can't
wait to test it in Australia, where last year I only did a
few laps on the Friday morning before crashing, which forced
me to miss the Australian and Turkish GPs".
The next test for the Ducati Marlboro Team will be from January
31st to February 2nd, at Phillip Island in Australia, the
second scheduled 2006 winter session.
Temperature: air 34° / track 46° C
Unofficial times: 1. Sete Gibernau (Ducati)
2m01.03s; 2. Loris Capirossi (Ducati) 2m01.08s; 3. Marco Meandri
(Honda) 2m01.10s; 4. Daniel Pedrosa (Honda) 2m01.51s; 5. Valentino
Rossi (Yamaha) 2m01.60s; 6. Nicky Hayden (Honda) 2m01.69s;
7. Shinya Nakano (Kawasaki) 2m01.79s ; 8. Randy De Puniet
(Kawasaki) 2m02.18s ; 9. Toni Elias (Honda) 2m02.23s; 10.
Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki) 2m02.38s.
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