Fifth place for Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team in Phillip Island Practice. Sixteenth place for Bastianini
• Five Ducatis in the top 5: Marc Márquez topped the timesheets with the Desmosedici GP machine of Team Gresini Racing MotoGP, followed by his teammate Alex Márquez. Third place for Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Racing Team), while Jorge Martín (Pramac Racing Team) is fourth
The Ducati Lenovo Team has completed the opening day of action at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, the venue currently hosting the seventeenth event of the 2024 season. After the cancellation of Free Practice due to adverse weather conditions, Francesco Bagnaia was fifth quickest in the Practice session, with Enea Bastianini in sixteenth place.
It was not an easy day for Bagnaia, who logged his first lap-time twenty minutes into the afternoon session. Despite the many variables affecting the unfolding of the day, from the new asphalt of the Australian track to the reduced track-time and the constantly changing weather conditions, the reigning world champion kept his focus on the top ten in the session as he made his way back to third place with three minutes left, courtesy of a 1:28.013secs lap-time, eventually finishing fifth.
Bastianini did all he could to work on the set-up of his Desmosedici GP machine as he moved back into the top ten on several occasions during the afternoon session. In the final stages, Enea’s last chance for a time attack was taken away by a yellow flag situation following a crash by an opponent in sector one and was therefore unable to secure the direct seed to Q2.
The Ducati Lenovo Team will resume proceedings tomorrow morning at 10:00 local time (GMT +11) for Free Practice 2. The first qualifying session will get underway at 10:50 and will be followed by Q2 at 11:15. The 13-lap, seventeenth sprint race of the season will begin at 15:00.
Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 5th
“It was a challenging day. We knew, even before we got to the circuit, that it would have been unlikely for us to be able to ride in the morning. In the afternoon session, we switched to the second bike as I didn’t have the right feeling with the first one. From then on, we kept improving and it was easy to pinpoint the set-up adjustments we needed, so much so that I felt good with both used and fresh tyres. The goal was to finish in the top ten and we were lucky that we could complete a time attack before the yellow flags came out, but we had the potential to finish in the top two – something which will be useful tomorrow.”
Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 16th
“The feeling at the beginning was not ideal as the bike was moving at the rear and obviously that affected also the front-end behaviour. We managed to address the issue in time for the final part of the session and I was feeling better, but unfortunately in the last two laps, with fresh tyres, there were a couple of yellow flag situations, and I ended up getting the chequered flag for only two seconds. We’ll keep working in order to improve some more tomorrow: we’ll try to be quick from the get-go in free practice before doing our best in qualifying as well as in the race.”
