Bastianini flies, Bagnaia trembles but saves himself: “A relief”

Shiver Pecco

First fear, then relief. Mandalika’s weekend seemed to have started off terribly Pecco Bagnaiawho struggled for a long time in the pre-qualifying of the Indonesian GP, ​​seriously risking missing out on direct access to Q2 tomorrow morning, exactly as happened last year. This time, however, one final paw with the softest rubber he avoided trouble for the reigning world champion, fresh from the bitter ‘zero’ at Misano-2.

“The situation I found myself in today was very similar to last year – explained Bagnaia at the end of the day – fortunately however, with the soft tire on the rear everything went back to working in the best way. It’s a shame that we lost some time in the last part, but we were trying solutions, as I was struggling to push in the right-hand corners. However, we need to understand what didn’t work in the first half of the sessionas the performance gap between medium and soft tires is currently really high. In any case, I’m happy with the result, it was a relief for everyone to have managed to finish at the top of the table. After these practices I am very confident for the qualifications and for the Sprint, while There will be some work to do on Sunday”.

Beast in command

The day of the other standard bearer of the Ducati factory team was decidedly smoother. Enea Bastianini. After the victory achieved in the Emilia Romagna GP, the Beast also started strong in Indonesia, obtaining the best time in Practice today: “It was a positive day – commented the red #23 – the track was a bit dirty this morning, but it improved a lot over the course of the day. Obviously the times dropped a lot in the afternoon but in general the feeling with the bike was good from the first session and we made some changes that worked. In the time attack we went fast, while with the medium tire it takes a few laps to get it up to temperature. However, we are all very close in terms of times, so it won’t be easy tomorrow in qualifying. In any case, I am very happy with today’s performance.”