Ducati Sporting Club UK > News Items > Ducati Press Releases > Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team fastest in Practice at Sepang. Third place for Bastianini

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MotoGP | Round 19 - Malaysian GP | Friday 1 November 2024

Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team fastest in Practice at Sepang. Third place for Bastianini

• Jorge Martín is second aboard Pramac Racing Team’s Ducati machine

The opening day for the Malaysian Grand Prix has drawn to a close, with Francesco Bagnaia topping the timesheets in today’s two sessions at the Sepang International Circuit. Bastianini finished the afternoon session in third, after a fourteenth place in Free Practice.

Bagnaia worked hard with his team on the set-up of his Ducati machine as he entered the top ten for the first time with 38 minutes left in Practice. Pecco improved his lap-times significantly in the closing stages as he made his way back to the top positions before securing first place courtesy of a 1’57.679secs lap-time.

Bastianini stayed in the top ten positions for the whole of the afternoon session, which was characterised by very high temperatures and slippery track conditions. Enea did an excellent job in the time attack as he wrapped up Practice in third place, less than two tenths away from his teammate.

The riders of the Ducati Lenovo Team will be back in action tomorrow morning from 10:10 local time (GMT +8) for Free Practice 2, which will be followed by Q2 at 11:15 and by the ten-lap, Malaysian Grand Prix sprint race, getting underway at 15:00.

Francesco Bagnaia (#1 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 1st
“I’m happy with this first day. We had a different strategy compared to other riders as we tried the medium tyre already in the morning, which was positive. In the afternoon, we started with a set-up that had the lowest possible grip and then build from there, and it worked. The base set-up was very close to the one with new tyres, and I’m very happy about it. Obviously, the goal for the weekend is to get maximum points before playing our cards right in the final event of the season: we’ll see if we manage to do so, but our potential at the moment is really high.”

Enea Bastianini (#23 Ducati Lenovo Team) – 3rd
“It was quite a good day. Lately we haven’t been able to be competitive already from the first session and we had to work more than expected on both the set-up and the riding style, but we adjustments we made ahead of Practice allowed us to make a good step forward. Time attack also went well, despite a small mistake at turn one. We’ll need to keep working and analysing the data in order to make the right tyre choice for tomorrow, as the difference performance-wise between the different compounds is really significant here at Sepang.”