Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati): “Best Friday in a long time” / MotoGP

Francesco Bagnaia’s 2024 season has so far started a little better than his world championship year in 2023. After two weekends, the Ducati star is 23 points behind world championship leader Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati) in the standings fourth overall and thus behind his colleague Enea Bastianini (third). )

But in practice on Friday for the US GP, the Italian played well and, thanks to the new asphalt, beat his best qualifying time from 2023 by almost a tenth of a second. With a time of 2:01.808, the 27-year-old came fourth and then said: “That was the best Friday of the last two years so far. Iam so happy.”

Bagnaia cited a change in strategy regarding the installation of his Desmosedici GP24 as the reason for his improvement in form: “We started with the setup from Portimão on Friday morning. “I wasn’t doing badly, but I wasn’t very fast,” said the Ducati rider after finishing 11 in the morning

The 29-time GP winner continued: “Since the grip was so high in Qatar, we couldn’t understand the bike. I had problems at the first time in Portimão. The bike didn’t give me good feedback especially when I let off the brakes. It was the same here in Texas at the beginning. So In the afternoon we changed the settings from last year, and immediately I felt better.”

Despite fourth place, the two-time MotoGP world champion was 0.411 seconds short of Jorge Martin’s best time of the day. However, Bagnaia does not see his brand-mate as the favorite: “In the morning, Enea was the strongest for me. In the afternoon, both Martin and Viñales had strong lap times. But I think from the point of view of the distance of the race, Viñales is currently in a better position .

Results MotoGP – Practice

1. Jorge Martín, Ducati, 2:01.397 minutes
2. Maverick Viñales, Aprilia, +0.076 sec
3. Marc Márquez, Ducati, +0.409
4. Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati, +0.411
5. Pedro Acosta, KTM, +0.569
6. Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia, +0.627
7. Franco Morbidelli, Ducati, +0.706
8. Enea Bastianini, Ducati, +0747
9. Fabio Di Giannantonio, Ducati, +0.847
10. Marco Bezzecchi, Ducati, +0.961
11. Miguel Oliveira, Aprilia, +1,069
12. Raúl Fernandez, Aprilia, +1,079
13. Alex Márquez, Ducati, +1,096
14. Brad Binder, KTM, +1,154
15. Augusto Fernandez, KTM, +1.156
16. Jack Miller, KTM +1,405
17. Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha, +1,442
18. Alex Rins, Yamaha, +1,478
19. Johann Zarco, Honda, +1,617
20. Joan Mir, Honda, +2,047
21. Luca Marini, Honda, +2.124
22. Takaaki Nakagami, Honda, +2,587