Bikesportnz

MotoGP championship leader Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia has set the third quickest time on the opening day of practice for this weekend’s Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring.

This was easily enough for him to secure a spot directly in Q2 today.

In the afternoon’s crucial MotoGP practice session, which was marked by a few drops of rain, the Ducati Lenovo Team rider was lying in fourth place for much of the hour, but he put in the quickest lap of 1:28.821 on his fourth exit to move to the front of the field with about 10 minutes remaining.

During the final few minutes of time-attack, however, he was unable to improve on his mark and was edged off the top slot by Italian Marco Bezzecchi, who took the top spot on the Ducati Desmosedici GP of VR46 Racing Tea, and by Spain’s Maverick Viñales (Aprilia).

Bagnaia’s Italian team-mate Enea Bastianini, who had achieved P11 in the morning, had a crash when at turn two in the afternoon and couldn’t go beyond 16th place (1:29.515), meaning that he will have to go through Q1 as well.

“It has not happened often the last weekends to be in the top three on Friday,” said Bagnaia.

“In FP2, we improved my feeling from the morning, and I felt better from the start with the front tyre. The pace was quite fast, but we only had one time attack because, in the second attempt, the traffic on the track was too much.

“But overall, I’m happy, we tested the new fairing, and what we were searching for from the fairing is better, we have improved the wheelieing.

“Let’s see tomorrow, it will be important to be in the top three for sure for qualifying; it’s true that it’s easier in this track to overtake, but the front pressure right now can be a problem.”

Photo courtesy Ducati

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