Source: Supplied.

Triple MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo’s first official day as a Ducati Team rider was a challenging one, but there’s no need to press the panic button just yet as he adapts to the factory Desmosedici GP.

While retired Aussie Casey Stoner stunned at the top of the timesheets with a 1m59.680s laptime, Lorenzo took a calculated approach on his way to a lowly 17th after posting a best of 2m01.349s prior to rain ending play.

“At this circuit I noticed a bigger difference between my Ducati and the bike that I have ridden for the last nine years,” Lorenzo said. “Now we have to do two things to be quicker – the first is to gradually adapt the bike to the way I like it and the second and more important, is to know how to do that and understand how to be quicker.

“I still need some more time for that, more than I hoped for, but in any case it’s still too early to come to conclusions. It’s only a question of time and laps on the track, so we will work in this direction. The important thing is that the other Ducati bikes were very quick and this means that the bike has a lot of potential.”

Lorenzo’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso experienced a positive first day of the season, setting the second-quickest laptime behind Stoner ahead of what will be his fifth-consecutive season with Ducati Team in the premier class.