Francesco Bagnaia had an unusual practice session at the Indonesian MotoGP. The Ducati rider finished only 16th and missed direct qualification to the second qualifiying in Mandalika after making a mistake on his last lap.
The championship leader addmited that it was an unexpected result: ‘I was not expecting to be out of the Q2, honestly. My feeling with the bike is finally back. I’m feeling incredible with the bike, I can brake very hard, the corner speed is insane. The grip level is huge compared with the last three/four races, so I was very happy. Then, we improved on that, but unluckly we lost something on the electronics, that today didn’t work as we expected. Maybe because the different tyres, the tarmac is different, many other things. Maybe is for that that I was struggling’.
According to Bagnaia, the rear end of his Ducati Desmosedici GP23 had a difficult behaviour: ‘Normally our bike is very smooth on the acceleration, very smooth on the braking, but today my rear was very, very aggressive. I was losing the rear in conditions I was not expecting it. When I lost the rear on the time attack under braking, in that moment the engine brake is very low, so losing the rear like this is quite strange. But I’m happy the problem comes from the electronic side. And it isn’t a problem – it’s just something to adjust better. And thanks to that I’m quite sure it is easier to improve. If it was a problem of the setting, for sure it would be more difficult’.