Ducati expect no advantage at Jerez

Australian Casey Stoner upstaged Yamaha's Valentino Rossi to take his maiden MotoGP victory, taking full advantage of Ducati's superior top speed to beat the Italian by nearly three seconds.

Preziosi, however, reckons Ducati's advantage will be erased in the next race in Jerez.

"I've swallowed too many bitter pills and I'm sober enough to realize you don't win the championship at the first race," Preziosi told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"Horsepower is like money: it's never enough. But at Jerez we won't have the same advantage we had in Qatar. On a 280 km/h straight too much power is useless.

"In fact, like everyone else, we'll cut down the power to make the engine more drivable. In first and second gear the reduction will be over 10%.

"We made a strategic choice in June 2005 to define the engine's characteristics and to keep the desmodromic distribution, rather than using pneumatic valves. At the end of that year we also opted for a screamer engine. All of this gave us a power advantage."

Ducati's rivals were impressed the Italian marque were able to produce such a powerful engine with such low fuel consumption, and Preziosi believes it's thanks to their different approach when designing the bike.

"Here are two reasons: the Desmo doesn't have springs so, except at maximum revs which in percentage you don't reach often, it saves fuel," he added.

"Our aerodynamics is extreme in function of the speed, but loses agility in the turns; Honda has gone the opposite direction."