An upbeat Francesco Bagnaia has claimed he is “very close” to matching Marc Marquez after registering his best Friday performance of the season in Qatar.
Bagnaia, who is coming off a morale-boosting win at the Americas Grand Prix a fortnight ago, was able to find his rhythm quickly on the first day’s action in Qatar and breeze directly into Q2. This came after missing the top 10 cut in Thailand, a mistake he almost repeated at the following two races in Argentina and the USA.
More importantly from a psychological perspective, Bagnaia was a fraction faster than factory Ducati team-mate Marquez in Practice on Friday.
Marquez was over half a second quicker than Bagnaia in the earlier Free Practice 1 session, but this is nothing unusual. It was nonetheless clear even at that point that Bagnaia was confident on the bike and finding his way up to speed faster than on the previous three Fridays.
Following the encouraging day, Bagnaia suggested that this weekend could be a two-horse race between the factory Ducatis — despite the fact that Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez leads the championship and has been second in every sprint and every grand prix so far.
“I think that we are very close to the fastest,” he concluded at the end of the day’s action. “I think me and Marc, at the moment, in terms of pace, are the strongest.”
Although Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) edged Bagnaia and Marquez into second and third respectively, the two factory Ducatis were in such strong shape that they chose not to indulge in a final run on soft tyres in practice. This skewed the picture somewhat and bears out Bagnaia’s assessment that the factory bikes are the pace-setters in Qatar.
"It's difficult to understand and analyse [our] pace because today we had to try the tyres. But for the first time [this season], I'm very close.”
Bagnaia’s win in the USA came was the result of a crash by Marquez, meaning Bagnaia still hadn’t beaten his team-mate on pure pace all season until today. While the main target in Practice was simply to be inside the top 10 and ensure a spot in Q2, Friday in Qatar was an important breakthrough for Bagnaia.
Marquez has a less dominant record in Qatar than at many other circuits, and has only won once in MotoGP in Doha. He conceded at the Thursday press conference that this fourth round of the season could be an opportunity for Bagnaia.
“It’s the first circuit [this year] where, theoretically, Alex and Pecco are better than me [according to] historical results,” said Marc.
