New Ducati fairing ready for Brno

Ducati is set to become the final MotoGP manufacturer to debut a 'downforce' fairing during the 2017 season, at Brno this weekend.

The factory, which pioneered the previous generation of external winglets, scrapped its initial 'hammerhead' design after top speed issues in winter testing.

But a new design, which will become the factory's one and only in-season fairing update, was successfully trialled by Pramac's Danilo Petrucci during a private test at Misano, during the summer break.

It is assumed factory riders Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo, not at the Misano test, will also have the new fairing to try this weekend, if they wish.

"The [Misano] test was good," said Petrucci, speaking in a sweltering Brno paddock on Thursday afternoon. "I was surprised by how many things Ducati built during this first part of the season, because during two days of testing we started at 9am and finished at 7pm. It was quite incredible.

"Some things like the new fairing will be available from here. I don't know if we try from tomorrow or from Saturday. In Misano we've seen that the fairing has more downforce and has no so-bad things. So we decide to try to homologate this new fairing for the rest of the season, but we can chose between the old and the new.

"It's an important thing for us because last year we were for sure two steps ahead in aerodynamics and when they decide to keep out the wings we were quite in trouble. Because we had a lot of study about the aerodynamics of the bike and the downforce of the front end of the bike. So without the wings we have to rebalance all the bike and it was quite difficult work. But at the end with this fairing I think we can make another step ahead, compared to the other manufacturers.

"But anyway we don’t know yet if here it is working better or worse. We have to decide."

Petrucci confirmed that the new fairing offers better stability - an area other Ducati riders, such as Lorenzo, have also cited as in need of improvement - but went on to warn that riding at next weekend's Red Bull Ring could be 'risky' without wings.

"First of all I have to say that they [banned] wings for safety reasons, but for me was not a safety reason. Because the bike now without wings are more unsafe," Petrucci declared. "Without wings and with a lot of straights - like in Austria - will be very very risky.

"I don't know why they [banned] but with this fairing, for sure we have more stability on acceleration. We haven’t compared with last year, so we cannot say it is better or worse. For sure it's different compared to our [normal] fairing, but we can use this fairing at some tracks and at other tracks we can use the old fairing. So at least we try 'a joker' to see if we can find the tenth to win a race."

Petrucci never tried the former, agressive 'hammerhead' fairing design, but stated that the new fairing does not hurt top speed.

"With this one the speed is almost the same. For sure, at some circuits you have to understand if the advantages are greater. But even in Misano every single part we added to the bike, we had to do a back-to-back test to understand if it was working or not. [The new fairing] is a small, small difference but many times during a practice session we see 15 riders in one-second, or first ten riders in four-tenths. So this year the gap between a good performance and a bad performance is very small. Like I said, sometimes you need a tenth a lap to win a race or not.

"I appreciate a lot the work of Ducati because they are working quite hard to stay on top, to try to win the championship and it's not easy to study a new thing, build it and understand if it is better or not.