Cardion AB Valencia test day 1 report

Karel Abraham tries out the new Ducati Desmosedici GP12 for the first time

Karel Abraham, Cardion AB Motoracing

Photo by: Bridgestone Corporation

First opportunity to try out the new Ducati Desmosedici GP12 had Cardion AB Motoracing rider Karel Abraham during the first day of the official MotoGP test at Valencia.

While most of the riders already had their first experiences on board the developing prototypes with 1 000cc engine and were therefore immediately into their rhythm, the twenty one years old Czech rider completed a few laps to make himself comfortable on board the Ducati Desmosedici GP12, but then made significant progress and set a best time of 1:34,393, which placed him to the tenth position.

Karel Abraham, who completed 61 laps and finished 2,207 seconds behind the fastest rider Dani Pedrosa, said: „It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. A lot of things are different on the bike and I have to get used to them, but I like the new bike and I believe it has good potential.“

„We had a lot of problems, especially with the grip of the tyres. At the beginning we also had problems with the clutch and then we had to change the set-up of electronics several times,“ Karel Abraham, who finished just 0,536 seconds behind the nine times world champion Valentino Rossi, continued. „We compared the gathered data with those collected from the factory team and we figured out that we have almost the same problems.“

Referring to the second day of the official MotoGP test at Valencia, Karel Abraham added: „I hope that we will solve the problems we had and we will be able to improve our lap times.“