Ducati tried a new rear aero unit yesterday at the Jerez MotoGP test which sits atop the infamous salad box, which either holds nothing or very clever electronics, depending on who you listen to.
The aero was being tried to give the works rider more rear stability under braking and added to that was a torque arm - last seen on Yamaha's TY80 - which attaches to the swingarm from the shock bottom.
It is believed that Gigi Dall'Igna is trying to make the bike sit down more under heavy braking which will give more rear grip. If the bike has two tyres firmly planted on the tarmac instead of one swinging about in the breeze, then it will stop more efficiently.
"We had to have two tests of the seat. We put the seat on, we removed, then we put it on again and we removed it again. For the runs it was like one and a half hours of work to understand the situation," said Petrucci, speaking at the track.
“The most different thing was influenced by the tyre conditions. We haven’t understood so much what the difference are but at the end we decided to remove because we saw in some areas, especially in the fastest turn of the circuit, I struggled a little bit to stay on the apex. Maybe on braking it was a little bit better but it was very small differences. We’ll try again in Sepang where we will see how it is."
