Bagnaia and Bezzecchi renew the challenge
Friday decidedly positive for Ducati in the first two sessions of free practice of the Italian Grand Prixboth for the official Borgo Panigale team and for the Mooney VR46 team: in the combined time classification, the reigning world champion Francis Bagnaia finished with the best performance absolute, closely followed by Marco Bezzecchiwho at the moment follows the MotoGP number 1 by just one point in the championship standings.
Bezzecchi’s admission
A satisfying day, therefore, for the winner of the Argentine Grand Prix and of the one staged just under a month ago at Le Mans, who thus commented on his general performance to the microphones of Sky Sports MotoGP at the end of the session: “It’s only Friday, but it’s become very important by now, so it’s a good start – has explained – I’m happy with both my pace and the flying lap, because I’ve been missing it for a few races. This time, however, it came out well, so I’m very happy. I don’t know how possible a challenge between me and ‘Pecco’ will be, I still have to see, also why on the pass it seems that he has something more than me. I was able to follow him for one lap, and that’s why he seems a bit faster, especially in some parts of the track, even if there are others where I can recover something. In any case, it’s only Friday, we can still perfect something and we can get closer. We found a way to be fast right from the start, even if it won’t always be possible because there are many variables. Both at Le Mans and here I found myself better in the time attack, which I lacked before, so I was able to make good use of the soft and set faster times to stay closer to the leaders or to pass into Q2. We must continue like this or file down a little more”.
Salucci impressed by his riders
A positive moment therefore for the team Mooney VR46as also underlined by its Team Director Alessio Salucciwho also remarked on the good performance of Luca Mariniwho also qualified directly to Q2 thanks to 10th placebecoming the sixth rider representing Ducati to achieve this milestone: “Bezzecchi had a scary time – he always declared to Sky – he proved to have a good race pace with the hard tires than with the medium ones, and this makes me even happier. As for Marini, I’m truly amazed because he managed to get the rabbit out of the hat with one lap, entering the top ten, and it will be useful to get through this day and night in the best possible way. I don’t know if we can consider ourselves a top team in all respects, we’re working well, we’re having fun and we’re first in the world championship as a team, but we’ll see”.
Bastianini’s great return
Finally, there were also the words of Davide TardozziDucati Team Manager, on the performance of Bagnaia and the returning rider Aeneas Bastianiniauthor of the 6th movement: “Enea is very talented and has a lot of speed, and that doesn’t worry us – he added – what worries us is the physical problem that could arise, but I have no doubts that he is a winning driver. I’m very happy with Pecco’s race pace, I think he has confidence with the bike at this circuit and I think he will we will see it particularly competitive“.
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