As everyone knows Ducati is not running the 1199 Panigale in World Superbike’s this year as they are using the World Superstock and several national championships in different countries to be used as a further development basis before its debut in WSBKs in 2013.
Superstock race Ivan Goi won on the Panigale last Sunday during the CIV’s Imola round, but before that Brice Nunnari won the first race of the European Bikes series at Le Mans, France and the EMS team gave the Ducati 1199 Panigale its maiden race victory when they won the first race of Castellano-Manchego championship, while Chris Leeson in the South African Superbike Championships at Zwartkops put it on pole, and Eddi La Marra put the bike on the podium for third place during FIM Superstock 1000 Cup race at ImolaReigning World Superbike champion Carlos Checa has tested Ducati’s MotoGP machines a couple of times at Jerez, but has never done a lap on the new Superbike and now be getting a chance this June at Mugello, according to Ducati Corse’s Superbike boss Ernesto Marinelli in an interview with the official World Superbike website.
“Checa has not tested it yet.
A strange coincidence but it was not planned.
We hope to have him make a nice test around June.
Every other test we have is very close to races, so it is not particularly nice to test too soon before a race.
The Panigale is a different bike and the feel is different too, so we do not want to take Carlos’ concentration from the championship.
That is his primary target.
His test is scheduled for Mugello after the Misano round, in one of our regular development tests we do every month.
”Talking about the Panigale’s World Superstock debut at Imola earlier this month, Marinelli added, “I think it was a very strange race,” continued Marinelli.
“La Marra did very well in the first part, and he was leading by 1.
5 seconds before they put out the red flag.
Our thoughts were that he was heading for his first win but they stopped it and he had already used all his four sets of tyres.
He had to restart with the same tyres he finished the first leg on.
They tell me Barrier and Baz each had one tyre that was barely used left (from their allocation), so they used them on the second part.
With a five-lap race and no aggregate any more, it was one-shot race after that.
Eddi had a few occasions where I think he could have passed Baz but of course he did not want to crash, he wanted to get points in the first race, so he felt it was too much of a risk and he got a third, which is OK.
Overall I have to say I was happy.
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