Enea Bastianini, a standing out rider in recent MotoGP GPs, was tenth fastest in FP1 and then fifth in Qualifying today, so he’s straight into Q2, but his Friday was a troubled one, with a crash that didn’t have any major consequences, but which left him somewhat uncomfortable in physical terms.
The Italian spoke to the press in Motegi, starting by saying that the crash happened after a phase in which his confidence levels were rising: ‘I have some problems with my neck, tomorrow it will be much better… maybe. It was a complicated day for me. In the morning, I tried to do as many laps as possible, but it was raining and I had to postpone until the afternoon. Unfortunately, in the second session, just when I was at my fastest and most confident, I crashed’.
A small mistake led to him crashing after losing the front of his bike, which warranted an explanation, as well as another reaffirmation of neck discomfort: ‘My foot got stuck. I should have come out of third gear and instead I put into fourth, lost the front and when I ended up in the gravel, I rolled and it affected my neck. With the first tire, I was trying to gain confidence to have that extra boost with the second and, in fact, the time attack was good’.
‘The second tire gave me different sensations to the first, as it was more stable and had more grip. I don’t know how it will be in terms of pace. I saw that a lot of riders were fast, especially [Pecco] Bagnaia, [Jorge] Martín, and the KTM riders [Brad] Binder and [Pedro] Acosta, but with the rain forecast for Saturday, we’ll be starting from scratch’ he said, echoing what his teammate had already said.
With the weather forecast showing a high chance of rain, Bestia recalled that when the rain falls in Motegi, it falls heavily: ‘What conditions would I prefer? Dry, as always. This is a track that, when wet, has good grip, but usually when it rains here, it really rains’.