Pecco Bagnaia has the number 1 on the fairing of his Ducati and today he reminded everyone of it. The reigning world champion was the star of the first day of the MotoGP collective tests in Portimao, coming close to breaking the Algarve track record and proving that he has already established an excellent feeling with the Desmosedici GP23.
And more than the best time of the day, this is the aspect that must worry the competition the most, given that last year he brought home the title despite a handicap start, due to a feeling with the GP22 that was slow to blossom . However, once all the pieces of the puzzle had been put in place, the Ducati rider was almost unbeatable, taking home seven wins and managing to recover from a disadvantage of as many as 91 points.
Now, however, the situation seems very different, because the relationship between him and the GP23 already seems to be close to an idyll and this can only scare his rivals, even if Pecco doesn’t want to make the mistake of underestimating them as he may have done at the beginning of 2022.
“I’m happy. We had a good day of testing and I’m satisfied with everything. We managed to focus on improving a package that was already working very well here. But tomorrow we have to close all the tests and see that everything works 100%. If we have time, we will also try to concentrate on work for the race weekend,” said a smiling Bagnaia at the end of the day.
“We managed to do a lot of laps with the race tyres, then in the end I also tried a time attack and everything went smoothly. I was already very happy in Malaysia and here we restarted at a very high level. The times were very good. good, so I’m happy,” he added.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: MotoGP
The adaptation to the GP23 seems to be proceeding in the best possible way, also because it seems to have taken the path requested by Pecco: “The new bike is different in some aspects, it’s not too similar, so it also needs to be ridden differently. Thanks to the solutions we’ve found In Malaysia, here I immediately felt good. Maybe we have a little less top speed, but the bike handles very well and that’s the most important thing.”
The comparison with the GP22 is therefore already very positive after just four days of testing: “This is a track that is particularly easy for me, because I really like the layout. Right now it seems to me that the bike is working very well, but there are still several small things on which it is still a little behind compared to the GP22. However, on delivery and mileage we have already improved compared to Malaysia. It is a whole process that is going in the right direction and we are close, but we are there. I can say that the bike is 90% consolidated”.
With regard to the aerodynamic package, the Ducati rider seems to be oriented towards discarding the fairing with the step and confirming the evolution of the 2022 one: “My ideas are quite clear from that point of view, but it’s only fair to try it again because it does different things on this track compared to Malaysia. Here it’s a bit closer to the standard one, although I still feel like I prefer it.”
When asked later if he believes that Ducati and Aprilia (11 bikes in the top 13 today) are the benchmarks, he continued: “At the moment it would seem so, almost more than in Malaysia, but it’s very difficult to say at the tests. We went very strong with both new and used tyres, setting very important times: with the average, for example, I managed to go below the record in the race. We are at a very high level, but it is difficult to know what the others, so I wouldn’t know what to say and I wouldn’t want to repeat last year’s mistakes”.
Tomorrow could be the right occasion for the first Sprint Race simulation: “Today we did a great job for the plan we had. There will still be a couple of tests to do, but mainly we will focus on trying a Sprint Race and preparing the first race weekend”, he concluded, thus recalling that the World Championship will start right on the Portimao track in two weeks.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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