Ducati Team arrives in Spain for Valencia GP season finale

With seven months and seventeen races having passed since the 2013 season-opening round in Qatar, the MotoGP teams and riders are headed to Spain for the finale event of the year, the Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana.

The fourth Spanish host circuit of the year, Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo is a stadium-like facility housing a relatively tight track that runs in an anticlockwise direction. The season-finale atmosphere is invariably exciting and party-like, although there’s also plenty of hard work, with the three-day GP to be followed by three additional days of testing as the teams begin preparation for the 2014 season.

Past years have seen the Ducati Team post a pair of wins at Valencia with riders Troy Bayliss and Casey Stoner (2006 and ’08, respectively). Andrea Dovizioso scored a MotoGP podium finish at the circuit two years ago and was runner-up in the 125cc class back in 2004. Nicky Hayden has a pair of premier-class podium finishes at Valencia, and although he’s been plagued by bad luck in recent years with crashes having cut his last three Valencian GPs short, he likes the track and has good memories of wrapping up his 2006 World Championship at the circuit.

Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team “For us Valencia should be a better track than the latest ones we’ve been to. Of course a lot will depend on the weather, which in this period of the year can be a bit unreliable, but I think that the track will be more suited to our GP13 because there is more grip and the surface is pretty new, so we should go a bit better. Then after the race we’ll see what there is to try out during the three days of testing. In any case I don’t have a particularly great rapport with this circuit… I’ve got good memories of the 2011 race when I beat Dani for third place in the championship, but I don’t like the track very much, and I don’t think I’m the only rider who thinks this way.”

Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team “I’ve got some great memories from Valencia. Some people think it’s a bit tight for MotoGP, but I actually like it. I think it’s a fun, scrappy little track, and in the past, it’s been pretty good for Ducati. The new pavement is grippy and doesn’t have a lot of bumps, which is good for us. We’ll see what the weather does. It’s the last one of the year, and although we know it’ll be tough to do something great, we’ll put our heads down, try to have some fun and finish in the best way possible.”

Vittoriano Guareschi – Team Manager “This is the final round of the championship, Nicky’s last race with us after five years, and also my last one with Ducati. Valencia is a circuit where, in view of its characteristics and numerous ‘stop-and-go’ sections, our bike goes pretty well, so it could be a nice opportunity to bring our adventure to an end and sign off with a good race. I’d also like to add that Valencia is the track where my relation with the Desmosedici began in 2002 and it’ll also be where this cycle, full of memories of the last 13 years spent in Ducati, comes to an end.”

Ducati

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