From a press release issued by Ducati Corse Press Information:

Jerez de la Frontera (Spain) Monday 2 December 2002

CAPIROSSI, BAYLISS AND GUARESCHI GET DOWN TO MORE TESTING WORK AT JEREZ WITH THE DUCATI DESMOSEDICI

Ducati Corse’s non-stop testing session in preparation for the 2003 MotoGP championship is continuing at Jerez de la Frontera today, for the second time in two weeks, as development work on the Ducati Desmosedici continues until Wednesday.

The two 2003 MotoGP riders Loris Capirossi and Troy Bayliss are present at the Andalusian circuit, as well as team test rider Vittoriano Guareschi.

The first day of testing was held on a track that was still not in perfect condition following last night’s rain. Several damp patches accompanied the riders throughout the day despite sunny conditions right from the morning start.

Today’s workload revolved mainly around the search for the best possible set-up, suspension settings and mapping of the engine, which was used by all three riders in ‘Four Pulse’ mode.

Loris, who knows the Jerez track well, continued to get to grips with his new bike and at the end of the day his best time was 1:44.4 in a total of 48 laps.

Troy, present at Jerez for only the second time in his career, completed a total of 56 laps, with a best time of 1:45.4.

Vittoriano concentrated chiefly on race simulation and the Italian rider’s best time was 1:46.8 in today’s 55 laps.

Ducati Corse Track Technical Director Corrado Cecchinelli expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the first day of testing: “Today went really well because we managed to make up for the time lost two weeks ago, when the weather conditions were dreadful. Hopefully we’ll have another couple of days of good weather so our riders can complete their set-up work on the Desmosedici. Today there was no point going for really quick lap times, because of the track conditions, but despite this we managed to get a lot of work done on reliability and set-up.”

N.B. Ducati Corse is unable to supply any images or rider comments of Loris Capirossi until the end of 2002.