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MotoGP
2005 - Round 9 - Donington MotoGP Qualifying - Ducati Report July 23rd, 2005
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MotoGP
2005 - Round 9 - Donington MotoGP Qualifying - Ducati Report July 23rd, 2005
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| Ducati Marlboro Team
riders Loris Capirossi and Carlos Checa endured a difficult
qualifying session at cool, cloudy Donington this afternoon.
The pair were 11th and 13th quickest for tomorrow's British
Grand Prix, the ninth even of this year's 17-race MotoGP
season. "It's been a really difficult day," admitted Ducati MotoGP project manager Livio Suppo. "Unfortunately the new spec tyres that Bridgestone brought here aren't perfect for this circuit. I'd like to thank both Loris and Carlos for riding really hard, despite the difficulties. We know that Bridgestone are working incredibly hard, and we know that when you are developing tyres or motorcycles, not every step is always a forward step. In racing, you have bad days, so we must learn from this to keep moving forward in the future." Loris Capirossi will start tomorrow's British GP from the fourth row of the grid, after clocking 11th-best time in today's one-hour qualifying session. "We're in a difficult and frustrating situation," said the Ducati Marlboro Team rider. "I did a 17-lap run at the start of this afternoon's session and it seems like we've got an endurance problem. Our only answer for the race is to run hard tyres, which, of course, will slow us down. It's difficult for the tyres to get up to temperature and I'm not getting much feedback, so I can't really feel what's going on. I don't want to accuse anyone because I can see how hard Bridgestone are working. They've brought many different new tyres here - new compounds and new constructions - but the situation is as I've just stated. Anyway, our aim is always the same: to keep working to get to the front of the pack." CHECA OUT OF LUCK ON FAST RUN Ducati Marlboro Team man Carlos Checa also struggled to get close to the front this afternoon, then ran into some bad luck on his best run, when his number-one bike suffered a technical glitch. "I've not always been the best at exploiting the extra grip of qualifying tyres," said Checa. "But today I felt I'd worked out how to gain some more speed, then my bike had a technical problem just two corners from the end of what should've been my fastest lap! Of course, a few tenths here and there doesn't make a lot of difference when you're 13th, but we must learn from everything today to improve the bike and the tyres. My main problem at the moment is getting the bike turned into the corners. It's a front-rear balance thing, maybe the tyres or maybe the tyres and the bike. It means I can't carry good rolling speed into the corners."
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MotoGP Championship
2005
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