Ducati News Today

After finishing 7th at the Czech Republic MotoGP yesterday on his Ducati GP11, Nicky Hayden began testing the evolution model, the GP11.1 which team mate Valentino Rossi has been racing for some time, in earnest during today’s official test.

Ducati had elected to eschew testing the GP12 1,000cc spec bike in favor of continuing development of the GP11.1 which is in effect the same thing, save for a de-stroked engine to get back to 800cc. Nicky immediately took to the new bike, setting a time almost two thirds of a second faster than he had managed with the GP11 during yesterday’s race.

For his part, Rossi has been doing a lot of laps testing and not necessarily going for a lap time as evidenced by his slower 10th fastest time. Of interest are the times of the 1,000cc spec bikes being run by Honda and Yamaha. I say 1,000cc spec since it is not known what the actual capacity of the 2012 engines will be. Given the fuel constraints there is a good case for an intermediate capacity between 800 and 1,000 which appears to be the path that Ducati are taking.

Casey Stoner is fastest, almost immediately into the 1:56′s on the big Honda V4. Ben Spies also liked the more powerful Yamaha lapping the second fastest and ahead of team mate Jorge Lorenzo who has lapped at about the same pace on both the 1,000 and a revised 800 which seems to be offering more power.

link: Times via MotoMatters

Mika Kallio is circulating at the back of the field on a CRT bike featuring a Suter chassis with a BMW engine. With a time of over 4 seconds slower than Stoner, the Suter bike is lapping at a good World Superbike pace at this still relatively early stage of development.

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