After finishing off his nine year Moto career with Yamaha with a superb victory in Spain on Sunday, Jorge Lorenzo made a positive debut with his new Ducati team on Tuesday when he climbed aboard the Ducati Desmosedici GP for the first day of IRTA tests at Valencia.
The test officially marks the start of the 2017 MotoGP season and the three-time world champion from Mallorca completed 60 laps on the 2016 version of the Italian bike, setting a best time of 1'31.052 to finish third overall behind his former teammate, Valentino Rossi and the man that replaced him, Maverick Vinales.
Meanwhile, his new teammate, Andrea Dovizioso was also on good form, switching between the 2016 and 2017 versions of the Desmosedici GP, as well as carrying out several runs on the bike without winglets. The Italian, who did a total of 54 laps, ended the day in fifth place with a best time of 1'31.131.
โThese two days of testing are very important for us, because they are the last ones we can do until the IRTA test at Sepang at the end of January 2017, and so we are doing everything necessary to define the details of next year's bike,โ Dovi said. โIt went well and we did several runs on the 2016 bike, both with and without wings, before switching to the new bike, which immediately proved to be very competitive, seeing as we were able to replicate virtually the same times. โ
