Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team top Austrian Practice. Tenth place for Enea Bastianini

 

• Four Desmosedici GP machines in Friday’s top 4: Franco Morbidelli (Pramac Racing Team) is second ahead of his teammate Jorge Martín, Marc Márquez (Team Gresini Racing MotoGP) is fourth

The Ducati Lenovo Team has topped the timesheets in the opening day of action at Spielberg courtesy of Francesco Bagnaia, who put together a perfect lap in the final moments of the Practice session to set the new, outright lap record for the Austrian track. Enea Bastianini finished Practice in tenth place as he also clinched the direct seed to tomorrow’s Q2 despite a crash in the late stages of the session.

After a fourth-place finish in the morning’s Free Practice, Bagnaia started dictating the pace aboard his Demosedici GP machine #1 as he moved up to first place already in the early moments of the session. With 45 minutes left, the reigning world champion logged a 1:29.280secs lap-time with the medium, rear-tyre option (a time that would have placed him in the top ten in the session) and, with the soft tyre on for the time attack, he then set the new, outright lap record for the Austrian track in 1:28.508.

Bastianini had more of a challenging time in getting the right feeling for the track as he could not finish higher than twelfth in free practice and then found himself at times outside the top ten in practice. Enea did manage to bounce back in the time attack before crashing unhurt during his final quick-lap attempt. This afternoon’s tenth-place finish will allow him for a more relaxed approach heading into day two.

The Ducati Lenovo Team will return to action tomorrow morning at 10:10 local time (GMT +2) for Free Practice 2, which will be followed by Qualifying 2 (11:15) and by the eleventh sprint race of the season, which will be contested over a 14-lap distance from 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 1st
“We’re happy, because we were able to try everything we had scheduled to try. This track suits my riding style well and I felt comfortable already from the first run. This afternoon, we made another step forward during the second run which was in the same direction we took from the morning, and that helped me a lot; unfortunately I didn’t feel like it was worth taking the risk to try the hard front tyre, which would have stil been an important piece of the puzzle; we chose not to as most of the riders who tried it ended up crashing.”

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 10th
“Unfortunately, we struggled more than expected, especially under heavy braking. We still need to understand why it happened, but I’m sure we’ll be able to improve tomorrow. Luckily, I’m in Q2 despite the crash, but I was always on the limit today. Honestly, I did like the hard tyre, even though I thought it was a little too much of a risk to try it during the time attack. It needs a few laps to get into temperature, but after tucking the front a few times I chose to not use it for the single-lap attempt. I don’t know if this was the right choice in the end, as right now I don’t feel comfortable with the medium option. We’ll try to understand which direction to take tomorrow, also depending on the track temperatures.”