RiderTua.com – Pecco Bagnaia and Bastianini tested two different approaches of the Desmo GP24 bike package for the Portugal series, and the one Bastianini brought proved to be more suitable, but what is certain is that their situation is safely under control, and they know what to improve. Meanwhile, if combined with Marquez’s approach when exiting the corner, all of Ducati’s opponents will be even further behind. The official Ducati team placed Enea Bastianini in first position and Francesco Bagnaia in eighth position in MotoGP pre-qualifying at Portimao. The good thing is that both are in the top 10, avoiding the always difficult Q1. At the moment, the rider from Rimini seems to be in better condition than the defending champion, but things could change on Saturday. There is still time to make changes to the bike.
Pecco Bagnaia and Bastianini use 2 different bikes in Portugal, use Marquez as a reference?
At the end of the day, Bastianini said about the situation.. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here. It was an ordinary day. We didn’t start on the right foot, but then we improved more and more. We faced the same problems as those we experienced in Qatar, so we started to overcome it. It went very well on the soft tire and we definitely need to make a step on the medium tire. Overall, a good day,” he said.
Apart from finally being physically fit, Bestia again discovered the extraordinary sensation of riding the Ducati Desmosedici GP24… “I think I made the difference when entering corners, that has always been my specialty and with this bike I found myself well at this stage. Engine braking “The GP24 helped me a lot. Marquez, on the other hand, is strong when exiting corners, for now he is a reference in Portimao,” he added.
Today’s first place didn’t excite Enea too much, aware that she needs to improve her skills especially on medium tyres. And Bagnaia also wanted to progress, appearing quite calm even though he didn’t occupy the top position. “Honestly today I didn’t experience any more difficulties. We are always working, GP24 requires something different on this track. At the beginning it was not easy to understand where to go, because the path is slowly becoming clearer. We took the wrong direction, tomorrow we will come back. It is important to be in the top 10. I am happy, we have identified the path and tomorrow we will be able to go straight away,” he said.
Despite not being at the front in practice, Bagnaia is calm and confident.. Pecco rightly underlines that the bike is still new and has never tested in Portugal, so in the Ducati garage they are trying different things to find out which is the best. “Enea did a good job, we took two different paths and hers was the most successful. We took the opposite one which didn’t work, tomorrow we already know that we will go back to dismantling the front line a bit and everything will be better.”
