First day of action at the Sachsenring MotoGP • Total Motorcycle

The riders of the Ducati Lenovo Team finished fifth and sixth in training at the Sachsenring, Bagnaia ahead of Bastianini

On the first day of action at the Sachsenring, both Ducati Lenovo Team riders secured direct starting positions for tomorrow’s second qualifying session. Francesco Bagnaia finished the afternoon session in fifth place, followed by Enea Bastianini, who crossed the chequered flag in sixth.

After finishing ninth in free practice, Bagnaia was in the lead until Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Racing Team) brought out the red flag for the crash. When the action on track resumed, Pecco gradually lost positions before fighting his way back to fifth place in the penultimate run of an extremely competitive session (with the top 15 riders just under a second apart). Bagnaia’s current gap to second place is just 0.123s, with the reigning World Champion putting in a very good performance over the longer distance.

Bastianini finished the session just 24 thousandths of a second behind his teammate as he set his personal best of the day on his penultimate attempt at a fast lap and on a soft rear tyre. Enea showed promising pace in the rest of the afternoon session on medium front and rear tyres. He also had an accident at Turn 11, which he escaped unhurt. In free practice, the #23 Ducati rider was seventh fastest.

The German Grand Prix continues tomorrow at 10:10 local time (GMT +2) with the 2nd free practice session, followed by the 2nd qualifying session at 11:15 and the ninth sprint race of the season, which starts at 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 5.
“Today we had to work a lot compared to Assen and we are not yet completely satisfied with the feeling on the bike. We were the fastest in terms of race pace today, but we missed something in the time attack. We couldn’t make the most of the fresh tyre as I lost a lot of traction. We need to figure out how to fix that, but we already have some clear ideas about the direction we need to go in. So we are not worried.”

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 6.
“All in all, it was a pretty positive day despite the accident in the afternoon. I’m particularly happy because I was able to improve lap by lap and had a good feeling this afternoon too. We tried something new that worked well in some parts of the track and not in others. So we have to do a good job tomorrow and put everything together as best as possible. The pace is very, very good, we’re just missing something in terms of single-lap performance.”