MotoGP | Bagnaia: “The best Friday in a long time”

Friday in Austin ended with the fourth fastest time, around four tenths of a second from Jorge Martin's record for Pecco Bagnaia, but the Ducati rider seemed quite satisfied at the end of the day. The reigning world champion is finding the right sensations aboard his Ducati and today the most important thing was to gain direct access to Q2.

After a less than ideal first lap in the time attack, he avoided taking too many risks in the second and this explains his gap towards the new record at the Circuit of the Americas: “I'm happy with my flying lap, but it wasn't nothing special, nothing incredible. In the first outing I was using the soft tire for the first time and I didn't do a good lap, so it was important to close the second. I kept a bit of margin, it was right not to take too many risks given that at that moment I was out of Q2.”

Broadening the horizon to the progress of the entire day, he once again reiterated his satisfaction: “It was the best Friday in a long time, so I'm very happy. This morning we started with the same setting as Portimao and I was quite competitive, but not too much. So in the afternoon we decided to go back to a very similar set-up to that of last year and I started to have a better feeling.”

“The fact is that in Qatar there was too much grip to understand whether the changes worked or not. In Portimao we started to suffer, so instead things seem to have returned to normal. We used a different strategy from the others, working with the tire medium instead of soft, and the pace was good. Tomorrow will be interesting, but for now I'm happy,” he added.

With a time of 2'01″397, Martin shattered the record that Pecco had set with the pole in 2023. According to the Piedmontese, however, there is room to do even better tomorrow: “I believe that with the pole we will go below 2 '01″ and it would be an incredible time. But for the pace in the race it will be a different matter, because you will have to manage a lot.”

Among other things, the World Championship leader doesn't seem like the favorite at the moment. According to him, there are other names to fear from a race perspective: “This morning Bastianini seemed very strong to me, perhaps the strongest. In the afternoon it was more difficult to understand: Martin and Vinales certainly did a great time attack, but in terms of pace Maverick seems the strongest to me. But I was focused above all on myself and I know what I can improve on.”

Finally, he was asked for his opinion on the new asphalt surface that has been laid in some sections of the Texan track: “It is better in some points, but for example between turns 16 and 19 the new asphalt seems too new and not it's clean. When you enter the corner you feel that you can push, but then the bike starts to move a lot and I think it really depends on the asphalt.”