Australian Grand Prix: Bastianini P8 and Bagnaia P11 in Friday free practice at Phillip Island


Ducati Lenovo Team riders Enea Bastianini and Francesco Bagnaia concluded Friday free practice for the Australian Grand Prix at the Phillip Island circuit in P8 and P11, respectively.

Bastianini, who returned to racing last week after his recent injury in Barcelona, made further progress as he secured a spot in Q2. Enea ended the day in P8 after putting together a quick lap of 1'28.453 on the twenty-first of his 23 laps in the afternoon. On the other side of the garage, Bagnaia set a best mark of 1:28.642 on his final lap, which put him into eleventh place. Therefore, he will have to tackle Q1 as well tomorrow.

Due to the threat of bad weather on Sunday and in the interests of safety, it has been decided to modify the time schedule for the 27-lap Grand Prix, which has been moved forward one day to Saturday, at 15.10 local time (06.00 CEST). Q1 and Q2 will be held at 10.50 (01.50). If the weather conditions allow it, the 13-lap Sprint will go underway on Sunday at 14.00 (05.00).

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 8th (1’28.453)
"It was a good Friday and from this morning we improved a little bit. With the medium at the start and the new tyre my feeling was not really good but after three or four laps I put temperature in the tyre, and it worked well. For the time attack my first lap was not very good, I had to push a lot to have confidence with the soft tyre, but the second one was, and I made a good lap time. Tomorrow, we have the normal GP due to the problem with the weather; I think I'm not on the top yet so I don't know what to expect from the race even if we are fast. We have to improve in sector 2 because there I'm really slow also compared to the other Ducati riders, so let's see if we can resolve that problem tomorrow."

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 11th (1’28.642)
"Again, like in Mandalika my feeling is good. Honestly with the used tyres and with the medium my pace was consistently fast, so I was expecting to be competitive on the soft for the time-attack, but as soon as I put it on, I started to struggle more, and the bike was moving around a lot. I saw that many big names will be in Q1 tomorrow, so it will be tough. We will try something tomorrow morning but, in any case, we will do our best as always."