MotoGP Mandalika: ‘Finally a good day’ for ‘unlucky’ Bagnaia

While the timesheets may not reflect it, Friday at Mandalika was ‘the best day’ of the 2022 season so far for Ducati Lenovo’s Pecco Bagnaia.

Yellow flags prevented the Italian from capitalising on his hot laps as the afternoon MotoGP practice came to a close, Marc Marquez and Enea Bastianini crashing out in quick succession, but Bagnaia was far from down in the post-action debrief.

“I’m happy that we have done a really good job today,” he started, somewhat unexpectedly.

“Is the best day of the year since the start of the season, also from the test, so I’m very happy about my feeling with the bike. Finally!

“We were just a bit unlucky,” he explained on concluding the opening day in Indonesia 21st in the combined times. “I found the two yellow flags of Marquez and Bastianini so I didn’t do a time attack, but in any case, the pace with the medium, doing laps I was second and my pace was very strong. So I’m very happy about that.

“Compared to the test I feel so much better on the bike and also compare Qatar day one and day two, the same,” Bagnaia continued. “I feel better, I can brake, I can be constant and my feeling with the front is back and I’m very happy about that. I also like the new tyres that they bring here because they are more stable for me so I prefer.

“I didn’t touch anything from Qatar,” he said by way of explanation of his turn around. “Just riding, just understanding how to do different things on this track but the feeling today was very good. Was the first time this year that with used tyres I was in the top three - because I was second and the pace was very competitive. So about that I’m very happy.

“Compared Qatar, we started to don’t touch anymore the bike from the FP4 and since then, we didn’t touch