JAPANESE GP BEGINS FOR TEAM GRESINI MOTOGP AT MOTEGI
#JapaneseGP free practice (1). It was not the best start to the Asian trip for Team Gresini Racing MotoGP, who at the moment is far from the top positions with both standard bearers. Luck was not on the riders’ side in what was an unusual first day with only one session of free practice: Enea Bastianini found himself in the gravel trap at turn five with few minutes left while Fabio Di Giannantonio’s performance was halted first by a technical problem and then by a yellow flag situation during his final quick-lap attempt.
The schedule will get ‘back to normal’ tomorrow, with two more FP sessions aside from Q1 and Q2, but adverse weather conditions may play a big role. With 20mm of rain forecast (almost 0.8 inches) predicted, the #23 and the #49 may have their fate sealed and be forced to go through Q1.
14th – ENEA BASTIANINI #23 (1’44.978s)
“We had a good pace today; I started with the idea of understanding the track on a MotoGP bike and we did immediately well with new tyres. I then tucked the front at turn five during my second time attack and we ended up kind of throwing the session away. It’s clear that with one session, things are much more complicated, and we must have made the most of it given the rain expected for tomorrow. We’re hoping for a dry qualifying session, because we’re competitive.”
24th – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #49 (1’46.365s)
“We were expecting things to be a lot different in the first session because we had prepared it well strategy-wise, but from the very opening lap I had felt that there was an issue that kind of affected the whole session. When time-attack came, yellow flags were deployed due to a crash by another rider, so we can only think about tomorrow now.”
