Ducati Sporting Club UK > News Items > Ducati Press Releases > The Ducati Lenovo Team inside the top five in Brno on Friday: Francesco Bagnaia is fourth quickest ahead of Marc Márquez

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MotoGP | 19 June 2026

The Ducati Lenovo Team inside the top five in Brno on Friday: Francesco Bagnaia is fourth quickest ahead of Marc Márquez

The Ducati Lenovo Team completed the first day of action for the Monster Energy Grand Prix of Czechia at Brno with both riders securing a direct seed to Q2. Francesco Bagnaia finished Practice in fourth position, followed by Marc Márquez in fifth, only 0.005secs adrift of his teammate.

Bagnaia, sixth in Free Practice, stayed in the top ten for most of the Practice session and made his way back up to third place in the closing stages before eventually finishing fourth. Márquez showed excellent speed despite crashing twice without injury: after topping FP1, he became the first-ever rider to lap under the 1'52s barrier at Brno during the afternoon session.

The Ducati Lenovo Team will resume proceedings tomorrow morning at 10:10 local time (GMT +2) for Free Practice 2, which will be followed by Q2 (11:15) and by the ninth Sprint of the season, contested over ten laps from 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 4th
“I'm happy with today's result. We were competitive, but we still need to do some work in terms of feeling. We need to improve on corner entry to allow me to make the bike turn without the rear stepping out. This is still a limitation, but we surely made a step forward. We also need to make a decision regarding the tyre choice, as the soft performs a lot better, but the drop in grip is quite significant. Still, we're doing an excellent job and I think we have the potential to be quick and do well.”

Marc Márquez (#93 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 5th
“It was a positive day and I felt very good, especially in the first run. The goal is to try and maintain this level of performance for the rest of the weekend, but so far so good. We made a step forward in terms of fitness compared to Mugello, but there's still a lot of work to do. I'm using the same strategy as at Balaton Park, meaning I'm pushing hard only in certain stints in order to save some energy. Obviously, this approach prevents me from maintaining a consistently high level of concentration and can lead to crashes. We still put together a good time attack and secured a place in Q2, which is the most important thing.”