Iannone 2nd and Dovizioso 9th at the end of first day of free practice for the GP of the Americas

The first day of free practice for the Grand Prix of the Americas, round 3 of the MotoGP World Championship to be held this weekend at the modern Circuit of the Americas near Austin (Texas), concluded with all the MotoGP riders setting their best times in the afternoon session.

Andrea Iannone recorded a time of 2’04.740, which earned him a provisional second place, on the final lap of FP2, finishing the session just 0.706 off the pace of today’s frontrunner Marquez.

His team-mate Andrea Dovizioso instead notched up a time of 2’05.195 and he finished the day ninth overall in the combined FP1 and FP2 standings.

Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 2’04.740 (2nd)

“My FP2 session was positive and we succeeded in improving a lot on this morning. We always used the same tyres throughout the session and lapped almost one second quicker on race pace. Obviously we still have some situations to analyze in detail: for example we have to improve a bit in T3, where I’m losing three or four tenths, but all in all I am fairly happy. It will be important to continue to work in this direction, because we started off well this morning and I’ve got an incredible feeling with my crew.”

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 2’05.195 (9th)

“Unfortunately this afternoon we had a few technical issues that conditioned the session a bit. Luckily they were nothing serious and, in view of this problem, I am pretty happy with the time I managed to obtain. This is confirmation that our base settings are very good and that the bike also works well here, and I am sure that tomorrow we will be able to lap even quicker and move up the timesheets. The tyre situation is still not clear for us: we did a comparison with the front tyre but we still don’t have a complete picture, while we’ll try the harder rear tyre tomorrow to see what difference it makes.”

Ducati Team