Francesco Bagnaia was one of the fastest on this Friday in Barcelona, setting the fourth fastest time in the MotoGP Catalan GP practice. He was 0.133s behind leader Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia), but feels he needs to improve for tomorrow.
The Italian explained that he expected to have a better performance with the medium tire and had some difficulties warming up the rear tire, although he assures that solutions are already being considered:
– “I was expecting more with the medium tire, because last year it was the race tire and my feeling was very good. Also because the 2024 one has a bit less grip and it’s more difficult to be consistent and fast. And this morning and this afternoon I needed six laps to warm up the rear – it didn’t work well until after six or seven laps. So, this is something we need to improve for tomorrow, but we already know where to go with the setup. The soft tire is working very well, but we don’t know if it’s good for the long race. The balance is positive, we are happy, but we need something more.”
In the comparison between the performance of the 2024 version of the Desmosedici GP with the 2023 version, Bagnaia stated: ‘For me, the braking point. The 2024 version is helping a lot on braking point, and a bit more in the corner, but it has a bit less grip. The bike from last year worked very well here because of the grip, because that helped. The grip level here is, by far, the worst, so it’s very difficult to get some traction and the bike from last year was helping a lot with that, but it turned less. The balance is very similar for me, but today the fact is simply that Marc [Márquez] and Álex [Márquez] didn’t have the chance to set a very good lap time – because Marc’s pace is very good. So, maybe he didn’t have the chance to be in the top ten‘.
