Dovizioso, Hayden try frame and engine developments

Factory Ducati MotoGP riders Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden evaluated frame and engine developments during this week's private test at Misano.

Apart from a brief morning rain shower on Thursday, the test was marked by good weather, enabling the riders to focus on their work, which consisted mainly of carrying out frame comparisons.

They also tried some engine developments and looked for a base set-up ahead of September's San Marino Grand Prix at the circuit.

Dovizioso, who rode for 105 laps, appeared to like the latest changes made to the frame of the development 'lab' bike and could use it at the forthcoming Sachsenring round.

"The Misano track is a bit inconsistent for our bike, but coming from Assen, we immediately felt a bit better at this circuit," he began. "We worked on the current bike, finding a setup for the Misano race, and then we went ahead with the development of the laboratory bike, trying some new stuff and finding some interesting things.

"We were able to do nearly two full days of good work, and today we tried a change with the frame. There were some positives, like an improvement with the feeling on corner entry. We must decide what to do; it's a new part, so we have to understand whether or not we can have it in time for the Sachsenring."

Hayden, who completed 158 laps, added: "It's certainly been a useful couple of days. We didn't make any drastic improvements, but I tried something with a different anti-wheelie solution that worked quite well, and I'm happy about that for the next two tracks [Sachsenring and Laguna Seca], which are maybe the worst two circuits for wheelies on the whole calendar."

While lap times were not released, the American revealed that he had set a low 1m 34s, which compares well with Jorge Lorenzo's 1m 33.9s official race lap record.

"We lost a bit of time today with the rain, but in the end I did a low 1:34. That's not a bad lap time, although we'll certainly have to do better than that when we come here for the race. We did a lot of laps, mainly with the wheelie control and a different fork setting, and we got some good information."