Casey Stoner 1.32:095 (55 varv)
"We found something extra during these tests. Straight away yesterday, second lap out, we went a lot quicker than we did in the race on Sunday and we just kept going from there. Today we kept getting faster and faster. We weren't really trying to do that, we had a lot of tyres and things to test, so we weren't out there trying to do lap times, but everything just seemed to come to us quite easily. It's been a fantastic season for us and it's really good to end this test with some positives and some more information which the Ducati technicians can take back to Bologna, knowing that we've got something more to work with and knowing the right direction in which to head."
Marco Melandri 1.33:835 (87 varv)
"Today we worked a lot on the engine and electronics, to understand how the bike reacts to every kind of change. It's been demanding because the throttle feeling is very different to what I'm used to. This afternoon we started working on the chassis, making some important, if not radical, changes. During the last half hour of the day I could feel we were improving and that we were starting to go in the right direction for my riding style. It was maybe too late to better my lap time but the sensation was really encouraging. Generally I'm very happy because I'm beginning to understand this bike's huge potential. All I've got to do is work hard to get it set up for my style."
Nicky Hayden 1.32:434 ( 92 varv )
“Today was pretty productive. We spent most of the day on the new machine and made some decent progress. We were focussed on trying to get the engine to run a little smoother at the top end and we’ve still got some work to do on that front. But it’s early days and we’ve gathered some useful data that the HRC engineers can use to hopefully improve things before we test at Sepang next week. I really like the chassis which is more balanced than the old machine. Not so much weight pitches to the front under braking and it wheelies less too. Overall I’m pretty happy with how this first test has gone and we’ve definitely got a better base compared with this time last year. Today I also did a long run on the 2007 bike to get some comparison data and I was still a little faster on the old machine – by about half a second – so we need to try to close that gap when we get down to work this winter.”
Dani Pedrosa 1.32:718 ( 88 varv )
“We’ve been testing a lot of things today and jumping from the old machine to the new one to gather comparison data. I think we’ve done a lot of useful work. One and a half days is not a lot of time to fully test a completely new machine but now we need to analyse the data we collected and come to some conclusions about the direction to take the machine. The feel of the new bike is quite different both in terms of the engine characteristics and the riding position. From the outside it looks bigger – and it is a bit bigger but it’s still OK for me. I didn’t focus on lap times today because the most important thing is getting familiar with the new bike and learning where we’re going to develop it. Anyway the lap times are not so bad for the first test. We also tested tyres for Michelin today, mainly with the old bike because we have a lot of reference data for that bike.”
