The Ducati Lenovo Team has started the Italian Grand Prix at the Mugello International Circuit the best possible way, with Francesco Bagnaia topping the Practice timesheets courtesy of a 1:44.938secs lap-time and making the difference in what was an extremely levelled and competitive session. Enea Bastianini finished sixth (1:45:403) as he made his way back to the top positions only in the final stages.
Bagnaia left nothing to chance as he wrapped up free practice in eighth place. In the afternoon’s practice, the reigning world champion placed himself within the top-5 already in the early minutes of the session and climbed up to third at halfway point. With four minutes left, Pecco set the fastest lap of the day and was the only rider able to break the 1’45secs barrier today – and was only 0.083secs shy of the outright lap record for the track, which he currently holds.
Enea Bastianini’s Friday was a more complex one compared to his teammate’s, with the rider #23 who could not finish higher than eighteenth in free practice. The afternoon session saw Enea outside the top ten until two minutes to go, when he was first able to move up to eighth position on the penultimate lap before gaining two more places in his final time attack attempt.
The Ducati Lenovo Team riders will be back on their respective Ducati Desmosedici GP machines tomorrow morning at 10:10 local time for Free Practice 2, which will be followed by Qualifying 2 (11:15) and by the seventh sprint race of the season (15:00).
Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 1st
“It was a positive day. As always, it’s fantastic to be riding here at Mugello. We managed to improve already in the morning session, in which I show a good pace with the used medium tyre. In the afternoon, with the soft used one, I also managed to be quite quick, so I’m really happy and satisfied with today. The time attack turned out to be a quite good one, albeit it wasn’t the perfect lap. It’ll be important to make a further step forward for tomorrow, but we’re on the right track.”
Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 6th
“The day didn’t start off well, but we made a few modifications and managed to improve. In the afternoon, we found what we were missing. Now all it’s left is that little step forward to get closer to the front. I was coming from a difficult race and needed to regain the right confidence, and it looks like that at each track we need to have a slightly different approach to the one before. Still, the base set-up is good. Pecco is the rider that currently has something extra and he’s very effective in the second sector, and we need to work in that direction. There’s still tomorrow to make that step and manage to lap under the 1’45secs barrier, but I’m happy because we’re close.”
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