Acerbis Dutch Round, Race 2: complicated weekend for Aruba Racing Ducati

It was not an easy round for Ducati at the TT Circuit in Assen this weekend: the Panigale never seemed truly competitive on this very technical and fast track, ultimately losing the comparison with Kawasaki despite two third places, respectively Melandri in Race 1 and Davies in Race 2, taken home.

Ducati returns from Holland with many questions that will necessarily have to be answered in two weeks' time, for the Imola round, if they don't want to bid a definitive farewell to the World Championship less than halfway through the season.
The first point is reliability, with Davies seeing a secure second place in Race 1 slip away due to a technical fault yet to be clarified, the second is performance and set-up: Melandri suffered problems throughout the weekend and he was never able to find the right set-up.
In general then the Panigale, with the exception of Davies' stratospheric performance in Race 1 where great credit goes to the rider, was never able to keep up with the Kawasakis: Melandri finished third in the first heat but more than 17 points behind second from Rea and Sykes, while in the second race the Welshman had to watch out more from Van der Mark behind him than from the leaders.

In the general classification Kawasaki dominates with 195 points with Ducati already 42 points behind after four rounds: already at this point in the season we can no longer afford another zero.

“It was fun doing all those overtakings and getting back into the traffic” – he explained Chaz Davies – “but honestly the race wasn't easy. We didn't have an optimal feeling like we had in Race 1 and the WUP. We lacked grip on the front and we were a bit 'on eggshells' in the last ten laps. We need to understand why, whether it was the set-up or the strong wind, but it was still important not to crash and take home points because I understood quite quickly that third place was the best possible result. Having said that, our goal is to win every time we have the chance, and we hope to do it again starting from Imola, which is a special place for me and for Ducati."

“The conditions were difficult, the wind was really strong” – he declared Marco Melandri – “Because of this I made a mistake at turn 11 on the sixth lap, ending up on the grass, and was passed by four riders. But then I was climbing well. It's a shame about the crash, because I think I could have fought with Vd Mark since our bike was more competitive than on Saturday, even if it still moved a lot. Unfortunately I have always suffered this type of problem here, perhaps because I am very light and cannot load the rear enough on this type of asphalt. Now we're going to Imola, a track that I really like and where I'm confident that we will put these problems behind us to have two good races."

It goes without saying that for the fifth round of the season, scheduled for 12 to 14 May at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, where Ducati will play at home, the Italian public is hoping for markedly different results.