Although Tamada recorded his best time with a qualifying tyre this afternoon, his fastest lap during the session with a race tyre would have made him an impressive seventh fastest overall.
Friday am - Doctor Suppo says: Go Testing, Chaz
"I believe that a 20-year-old boy can learn more doing one season of testing on a factory bike in a factory team than racing in the Supersport class in a team that may not be fully competitive."
That's the advice from Estoril this morning of Ducati Marlboro project director Livio Suppo to the talented British youngster Chaz Davies, who is pondering what direction to take in his racing career.
A rider always wants to race rather than test, but Davies would do well to consider Suppo's words, as they come from the leader of a team that has a fantastic record of making spot-on judgements. This is the guy who bet on switching Ducati from Michelin to
Bridgestone tyres when the latter were still largely unproven in 2005, and who picked up
Casey Stoner when others considered him a huge risk.
"One of our dreams is to have a young rider involved in testing like they have in
Formula 1," Suppo mused. "Remember that
Fernando Alonso [the current
F1 champion], was a test driver before he joined Renault."
Suppo points out that a rider in the Bridgestone-Ducati test squad would gain fantastic insight and experience into the operations of two top organisations, which conduct around 13 test sessions a year. The current test rider is the experienced Japanese Shinichi Ito, but he is around 40 years of age and a successor will have to be found soon.
There could be another significant bonus for the tester. "He could also be a wild-card rider for our
MotoGP and World Superbike teams," Suppo said. "This would offer fantastic potential for a 20-year-old rider." Hint, hint, Chaz.
