Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini end Day 1 of the Indonesian GP in P16 and P20 respectively

Francesco Bagnaia ended Day 1 of the Indonesian GP, held this weekend at the Mandalika International Circuit, in sixteenth position. Bagnaia started off well in the morning session, when the track conditions were not ideal, and was able to record a P6, but he found it hard to put together a clean run in the afternoon when yellow flags, cancelled laps and a couple of mistakes hampered his search for a quick lap time. He was looking good for a P6 finish on his final time attack, but a slight error at turn 11 brought an end to his run. Pecco finished the day in P16 with a time of 1’31.635, over one second off the top slot, which means that he will have to go through Q1 for the first time since the Spanish GP, that he won. 

Teammate Bastianini, back on track again after missing the last three GPs, eased himself in with a positive P9 in the morning session, but a crash at turn 11 with five minutes remaining in the afternoon practice meant that he ended the day in twentieth place. Bastianini will have to go through Q1 as well with Bagnaia.

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 16th (1:31.635)
“Today I have two faces; one is happy that finally we found a good compromise for the set-up, I was feeling so good in braking and in entrance, my bike was following me very well; on the other side, I’m not feeling well with the electronics, which are not working as expected. I’m having a lot of movement and I lost the rear many times, I nearly crashed in the last attempt of time-attack, and I was lucky to remain on the bike. The last four weekends we have had some issues, and this was not the perfect way to start the weekend, but we will manage it, my team is ready for that and understands what happened. I’m not worried about Q1, it is just one session more where you must push and the last time I was in Q1, I won the GP.”

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 20th (1:32.208)
“I'm happy to be back in the saddle of my Desmosedici GP. This morning went very well, and I found my speed straight away. I felt that physically, I was feeling quite good, so I was able to push. This afternoon however I made a few more mistakes, the conditions were different, so I struggled more to be fast. Then honestly at the end of the session, I was a bit tired, I made a mistake and crashed. Obviously, I couldn’t get directly into Q2, but overall, I'd say it was a positive day. Two difficult races certainly await me because physically I'm not 100% but I will try to stay in front and give my best."

The Ducati Lenovo Team will be out on track again at the Mandalika International Circuit on Saturday morning for the second free practice session at 10.10 in Indonesia (04.10 CEST), while Q1 and Q2 follow shortly after at 10.50 (04.50). The afternoon’s Sprint race is scheduled to get underway at 15.00 local time (09.00) and will be held over 13 laps.