Pecco Bagnaia with the crucial piece of the puzzle in Q2: “It feels good!”

“I haven’t made it into Q2 since Assen?!” An incredulous response from Francesco Bagnaia when asked how it felt to have finally qualified directly for Saturday’s second qualifying session again on Friday. “It’s fantastic,” he said. However, the laughter that followed made it clear that the Ducati rider looks back with some bitterness on the six race weekends during which he had been denied this breakthrough.

The Turin-born rider hadn’t anticipated that he would manage this feat at the Mandalika Street Circuit: “I didn’t expect it to work out in Indonesia of all places. After all, we’ve usually had problems on this circuit in the past.” However, the previous race weekend at Motegi had helped; there, the rider with number 63 had to retire from the sprint race shortly before the end, but managed to work his way up from 15th on the grid to eighth place in Sunday’s race: “Thanks to the races in Japan, we’ve learnt something about our bike. That’s given me a better feel for the front wheel when braking here in Indonesia; I was able to string together more laps in practice – and that’s given me confidence in my bike. It feels good!”

Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia still sees room for improvement

A crucial piece of the puzzle for the 2022 and 2023 MotoGP World Champion: “It was a minor issue that caused the problems.” “Pecco” didn’t want to say exactly what it was, but he did say this much: “It’ll be sorted by Saturday.” By Saturday, because the Italian tackled Friday’s sessions with two different motorbikes, each set up in different configurations. His spare motorbike still needs to be modified.

A step forward for next year’s Aprilia works rider: however, Bagnaia does not expect to be able to beat his future employer in the battle for podium places in Indonesia. Bagnaia is still too far behind the front of the field: “I’m losing too much time in the second and fourth sectors. Attacking the Aprilia riders is out of reach. But small details can make a big difference. We can still get a bit more out of the bike, and I can make up a bit with my riding style. In one sector, even a slightly shallower lean angle helps; tomorrow will be even better!”

Topic of the week

A stuttering start to the Bahrain Grand Prix: the FIA narrowly avoids a fiasco like the one in Indianapolis in 2005

Fans could hardly believe their eyes at what they witnessed at the Bahrain Grand Prix: cars crawling along, racing cars that simply came to a standstill. The FIA narrowly avoided a fiasco like the one at Indy in 2005.

Mathias Brunner

Read More

TV Program

Tomorrow

Mandalika: International Livestream

MotoGP World Championship

10.10.2026 - 02:35