This weekend’s racing at the Dutch TT started well for Andrea Dovizioso, ending the first day in 11th position. He was in a group of ten riders all covered by just one second as they all fought for fourth position on the timesheets. During the morning, the JiR Team Scot rider started to find the right feeling with the circuit, which he admits from his time in 125 and 250cc categories isn’t one of his favourite circuits. In the morning he was in seventh position, then in the afternoon the whole programme of the team was focussed on finding the best set-up of the bike. For the qualifying day of tomorrow the team will aim to find an increased pace for the race. With Andrea only three-tenths of a second from fourth in the provisional classification, he’s confident that he can improve tomorrow.
Cirano Mularoni – Team Manager JiR Team Scot“The circuit of Assen is not one of Andrea’s favourites from his time on 125 and 250cc machines and also with the MotoGP bike he doesn’t feel so comfortable around here. The question is to keep on trying and he will gain in confidence as he did throughout the day. Today we did a huge amount of work to find the best balance of the bike and we tried many different solutions of tyres. We were not focussed on the ultimate lap time but instead finding the right pace for tomorrow and then the race. Assen is a demanding racetrack: you need stability in the fast sections, but also handling for the part of the track with corners and bends. We will work tomorrow to find the proper solutions.”
Andrea Dovizioso – Rider JiR Team Scot MotoGPHONDA RC212V – 11th: 1’37”326“The gap of three tenths to fourth is not important as many of us are all together within a second and I know that we can improve. We are working to improve the overall stability of the bike, which in braking and in the corners doesn’t give me the confidence I’m looking for at the moment. We tried today a lot of tyres and made many runs but it’s not so obvious at the moment which we will use for the race, which in my opinion will be run in the 1m 37 bracket which I feel I can reach. This pace could make for an interesting race. With the MotoGP bike Assen remains one of the tracks, which are not my favourite, but today is the first day and I think that tomorrow things will be easier for us. This is another reason why I’m not worried by our position of 11th overall today.”
Gianni Berti – Technical Co-ordinator JiR Team Scot“Today was the start of our very important programme of tests in which we were working on finding the proper balance of the bike and using the tyres at our disposal without looking for the best lap time. We made many short runs to properly test everything and tomorrow the target will be our pace for the race. We are not so far off the leaders and I’m confident we can find the lap times that allow us to do a good race.”
