Friday at Motegi: Bastianini leads the way, Di Giannantonio learning fast
Gresini Racing Team Moto3 racer Enea Bastianini topped the timesheets at the end of the the first day of Free Practice for the Grand Prix of Japan: seventh fastest in this morning’s first session, the 18-year-old rider from Rimini then set the fastest time – 1’56”982 – in the final minutes of the afternoon session. Tomorrow Bastianini will continue to work on the bike together with his technicians, focusing on finding more rear grip on the exit of the slow corners.
The other Gresini Racing Team Moto3 rider, Fabio Di Giannantonio, was instead 15th in the combined classification with 1’57”885. At his first visit at Motegi, the 18-year-old rookie from Rome was satisfied with the progress made during the day and he’s confident of being able to further improve tomorrow, continuing to deepen the knowledge of the track and working both on corner entry and on throttle opening out of the corners.
ENEA BASTIANINI (1st – 1’56”982)
“This first day of practice went very well, we started the weekend on the right foot! This morning I was already quite fast, but not enough, so ahead of the second session we worked hard to fix some grip issues. The track in fact does not provide a lot of grip and at the moment we are still struggling a little bit to be fast out of the slow corners. However, in the afternoon we were able to improve, getting a good performance. We will continue to work ahead of tomorrow’s Qualifying, that will be hard fought, as always!”.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (15th – 1’57”885)
“I honestly didn’t expect that this track was so beautiful! Before leaving for Japan, training with the PlayStation, I had a different idea of the track. Actually today I really enjoyed riding here and I was able to learn the lines quite quickly. This morning I was a bit too aggressive, especially under braking: this prevented us from getting a good cornering speed and as a result we were losing time. Therefore in the afternoon session I tried to ride more smoothly and in the final stages, with new tyres, we also got a nice lap time. Too bad only for the second lap with new tyres, in which two small mistakes prevented me to further improve. Anyway, there is still room to improve, so let’s see how it goes tomorrow!”.
FAUSTO GRESINI
“The weekend started very well: I’m happy because the feeling is that Enea is already riding very well and manages to be fast in a comfortable way. This was a first positive day also for Di Giannantonio: his gap from the fastest is normal for a rookie at his first experience on this track. Now we stay focused for tomorrow: the work on the set-up is already well under way, but it will be important to continue to work well in order to better understand the behaviour of the tyres”.
