Pirro back in the Ignite Pramac Racing Team garage at Circuit de Catalunya

Michele Pirro was back with the Ignite Pramac Racing Team today as a temporary substitute for American Ben Spies at the Catalan Grand Prix. The Italian is riding the ‘laboratory’ version of the Desmosedici GP13 in order to continue the bike’s development.

Michele Pirro, Ducati Team

Photo by: Ducati Corse

The first day of free practice concluded today with Michele Pirro occupying thirteenth place, having lowered his best time from FP1 by nearly a second.

His goal for tomorrow will be to limit rear-suspension pumping as much as possible.

Michele Pirro – Ignite Pramac Racing Team: “Well, we’re outside the top ten. This morning I had a small problem with the bike I used at Mugello, so we weren’t able to take advantage of the setting that we had found there.

We’re having many problems with the rear; the bike moves a lot, and the track certainly isn’t the easiest from that point of view.

There are so many fast corners where you have to open the throttle with the bike leaned over. We’ll work tomorrow to see what we can do to improve, because it’s really limiting us at the moment since I’m not fast on corner exits. Things were different at Mugello.

Anyway, it’s just the first day, and although we knew that it wouldn’t be easy, we still have another day to prepare for the race. In the end, the gap to Dovi is six tenths, so I think there’s still room to improve.”

Ignite Pramac Racing