Francesco Bagnaia has remained unshaken at a time when many place Jorge Martin as favourites to win the title. However, as we have already mentioned, to be champion you cannot rely only on pure and hard speed, you also need to be consistent, and that, Bagnaia has achieved like no one else, despite some mistakes in past rounds.
The reigning world champion was only 10th and 7th in FP1 and second practice session, respectively, but said he feels confident of fighting for the top position on the grid in qualifying:
– It was only in the afternoon (brake problems). It was more because of the feelings, because I prefer when the first part of the braking is quite aggressive and I wasn’t feeling that, so in order not to waste too much time on that, I decided to go in and change (the discs). (…) I think the Aprilia at this circuit, with the grip they have, they will be very competitive, but I think for us, a good result would be a top 3, the front row. But I think we can fight for pole position. I have the feeling that we are very strong.
The #1 was still skeptical about predictions for the race, since the riders’ strategies are very different during friday, still letting him foresee a good performance from Aprilia and KTM, but also from himself:
– It’s always difficult. It’s always difficult, with the exception of Barcelona, to predict who will be the fastest, just with Friday because we have very different strategies during the session, but for sure the Aprilia are competitive, the KTM too, so we’ll see. If we can improve our corner entry a little bit, the last part of corner entry, we can be faster.
Pecco Bagnaia also said that the results of the first sessions of the weekend were quickly identified, with the help of data from the other bikes at Borgo Panigale:
– Yes, that’s why I expected a lot more in the afternoon (to have ridden at 1.31 in the first session), but as soon as I started to get to ride at 1.31.1, I was pushing a lot more than I was supposed to and I was struggling a bit to find the feeling on the right side, and as soon as I entered the pit box I asked my team to show me the data of the Ducati riders with the medium. And I was losing a lot in traction at that point in the session. So we had to change something on the bike, but the reason was just that, we just had to change the rear tyre.