The Ducati Lenovo Team secure direct access to Q2 at Mugello: Francesco Bagnaia second, Marc Márquez sixth

• Fabio Di Giannantonio tops the Friday timesheets with the Ducati of the VR46 Racing Team

The Ducati Lenovo Team completed the opening day of action at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, host of the seventh Grand Prix of the season. Francesco Bagnaia finished Practice in second place, while Marc Márquez was sixth quickest on his first day back after the double surgery he underwent on May 10th.

Bagnaia moved into first place in the early stages of Practice and remained among the frontrunners throughout the session. In the closing stages, Pecco climbed back to second position to finish only 0.091s shy of the fastest lap-time of the day. Márquez, after being declared fit to continue his participation in the Brembo Grand Prix following FP1, secured sixth place courtesy of an excellent time attack in the final minutes of the session.

The Ducati Lenovo Team will resume proceedings tomorrow at 10:10 local time (GMT +2) for the second Free Practice session, which will be followed by Q2 (11:15). The seventh Sprint of the season will be contested over an 11-lap distance from 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 2nd
“I always love racing here at Mugello because it's a fantastic track. The grip level is very low at the moment: you need to be careful on corner entry because the front tends to tuck, and also on corner exit due to the high rear-tyre wear. It was a positive day, both with fresh and used tyres. I only made a mistake on my final time attack, but we still managed to secure direct access to Q2. Compared to last year, I can make the bike turn a little better and this is helping, but we still need to make a step forward in some areas of the track.”

Marc Márquez (#93 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 6th
“I was quite far from the frontrunners throughout the day, and then I simply gave it everything in the time attack to make it into Q2. We achieved that, and it means that, in the worst-case scenario, we'll start twelfth on the grid, which isn't too bad after all. Honestly, the feeling wasn't as good as I had expected, but we need time and we need to be patient. Obviously, I can't move on the bike the way I'd like, but that's normal considering I'm only two and a half weeks removed from surgery. We did our best today and achieved our target; we'll see how I feel tomorrow.”