Ducati Sporting Club UK > News Items > Ducati Press Releases > Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team second in Portimão Practice. Nicolò Bulega seventeenth on his MotoGP debut

[webteam]

---

MotoGP | Round 21 - Portuguese GP 2025 | Friday 7 November 2025

Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team second in Portimão Practice. Nicolò Bulega seventeenth on his MotoGP debut

• Alex Márquez tops the timesheets with the Ducati of the Gresini Racing Team

The Ducati Lenovo Team enjoyed a positive penultimate Friday of the 2025 MotoGP season at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimão. Francesco Bagnaia finished Practice in second place, while Nicolò Bulega was seventeenth on his first-ever day in MotoGP.

Bagnaia started the afternoon session well, taking fourth place in the opening minutes. After briefly dropping to the lower end of the top ten, Pecco made his way back to second courtesy of an excellent time attack, ending up only 30 milliseconds shy of today’s quickest time. Bulega, this year’s WorldSBK runner-up with Ducati, showed encouraging signs aboard the Desmosedici GP as he finished seventeenth, one second off the top.

The Ducati Lenovo Team will be back in action tomorrow morning at 10:10 local time (GMT) for Free Practice 2, followed by Q1 at 10:50 and Q2 at 11:15. The twenty-first Sprint of the season will be contested over 12 laps from 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#63 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 2nd
“This morning we made a mistake with the front-tyre choice. I was having a bit of a difficult time because the bike tended to go wide at some corners and I couldn’t make it stop and flow into the corner. Things went better this afternoon: we started with the soft option to get some feedback from the bike, and then I enjoyed the hard front tyre as well. In the last time attack we managed to set a good lap time without pushing too hard. All in all, I’d say the situation is positive at the moment.”

Nicolò Bulega (#11 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 17th
“Today went quite well. I didn’t give too much importance to the classification: what really mattered was completing as many laps as possible and understanding the many differences compared to the bike I’m used to. Tyres are different, there are the ride-height devices to manage, and the Desmosedici GP is really a powerful machine. The positive thing, ironically enough, is that my riding wasn’t the best — but I guess that’s quite normal. There’s a lot to process and absorb, but I’ll sleep on it and start tomorrow with one more day of experience.”