A quietly assured Francesco Bagnaia completed Friday apply in Qatar predicting the Lusail lap report will fall in Saturday’s MotoGP qualifying.
Not like on the three earlier occasions, the Ducati Lenovo rider was persistently fast, finally ending second behind shock chief Franco Morbidelli and forward of team-mate Marc Marquez.
“From FP1 I used to be feeling nice, however I used to be nonetheless lacking one thing, that we discovered this afternoon, so very comfortable about it,” Bagnaia informed MotoGP.com, later revealing: “We did one thing on the bike that was serving to me extra to show extra.
“I’m very comfortable in regards to the tempo and the sensation with each tyres.
“It is true that tomorrow the situations will enhance and it’ll not be straightforward to resolve which rear tyre would be the right one for the Dash race.
“However proper now I am simply very proud of the sensation.
“I used to be at all times within the prime three throughout the session and that is already a terrific step in entrance. We now have simply to proceed like this.”
Regardless of the absence of pre-season testing in Qatar, leading to a visibly dusty floor, Morbidelli’s time assault was solely a fraction from the official pole report.
“The tyres are working properly and I feel the report lap time will drop,” Bagnaia mentioned.
The double MotoGP champion got here near setting a brand new report himself on Friday, narrowly lacking out because of an error at flip 15 which left him simply 0.145s behind Morbidelli.
“Already at the moment, I simply missed a bit nook 15, however I used to be near beating the report,” he mirrored.
“It is unimaginable how briskly we’re proper now contemplating that we did not do any checks and the situation initially of the day wasn’t the most effective.”
Michelin has modified the comfortable rear tyre to attempt to create an alternative choice to the medium compound utilized by nearly all riders in final yr’s Qatar Dash and predominant races.
