Jerez de la Frontera marks the highest point of MotoGP’s preparation for the upcoming 2008 season. This is the period when every team formulates their final and crucial adjustments such as the bike’s tires, wheel bearings and every significant component that will affect the team’s performance.
According to Ducati Racing News, the first MotoGP Official Test started at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain. The first test of three full days of practice transpired in sunny and enjoyable temperatures with the whole allocation of MotoGP teams on track mutually.
Both Casey Stoner and his team-mate Marco Melandri applied qualifying tires during day one. It highly favored the drivers to focus on seeking the most excellent and probable arrangement for the Andalusian circuit which is known to be one of the most tough on the World Championship schedule for both Ducati engineers and Ducati MotoGP Team riders.
"Basically we’ve just been trying to get the bike to work around this circuit. We struggled here last year and it’s been a case of trying to find out why. The Bridgestone tyres work well here but at the moment the bike is not at the best level. We tend to lose grip and I have problems turning into the corners. It is one of the more even circuits so we’ve been working on the chassis balance and we made some big steps late in the day. We’d hoped to do some racing tyre testing today but that had to be put on one side while we worked this thing out and at the end of the day I’m happy with what we’ve achieved,” says Casey Stoner (Ducati MotoGP Team) who was able to come up with with fastest lap of 1’40.651.
"You can definitely feel the extra competition here and you can see that the riders are out there to perform. Having all the riders out there, with the sponsors and the fans looking on, it definitely gives you extra motivation. Our position could be a lot better but at the moment we’re not worried. The forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look good but if it stays fine the plan is to pick up the tyre testing and try some of Bridgestone’s qualifiers out for the shootout in the afternoon. Hopefully when we get up in the morning the bike feels good from the start and allows us to focus on the job,” added Stoner.
“I’m quite satisfied with the work we have done, which was all on race tyres, because I can see that we are making progress. We’re still lacking a little consistency because the pace on new rubber is quite decent but we’re struggling too much when the tyres go off. It’s mainly a problem on the rear, which doesn’t give me great feeling in the middle of the corner, but on the front we’ve found a geometry setting that I think is more well-balanced compared to anything we’ve tried previously in testing. I didn’t use a qualifying tyre because my objective is not to set a single fast lap, or to win the car tomorrow. I’m confident that when we find the pace in race trim it will come automatically on a qualifier too,” says Marco Melandri (Ducati MotoGP Team), fastest lap at 1’41.392.