Francesco Bagnaia “relived the nightmare” of last year in Indonesia MotoGP practice

MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia says he was “reliving the nightmare” of last year’s Indonesian Grand Prix during a tough Friday at the Mandalika track.

Bagnaia managed to safely bag a place in Q2 for Saturday morning’s qualifying session in Indonesia, but was facing a potential repeat of 2023 in Indonesia.

Last year, Bagnaia failed to make it out of Q1 and allowed Jorge Martin to take a very brief lead in the championship after the sprint, before coming through from 13th to win the grand prix.

Explaining his issues, Bagnaia says on the medium tyre he “didn’t feel well” in the right-hand corners but found an instant improvement when he switched to the soft rear for his time attack.

“I was reliving the nightmare from last year, same feeling,” he said.

“But luckily when we put the soft rear on, everything started to work again like normal.

“So, it’s a pity that we lost a bit of time in the first part of the session until the time attack.

“We were trying things, but on the right side I didn’t feel well, I was struggling a lot to push.

“And as soon as we put the soft rear tyre on everything started to work again.

“So, very happy for this. We managed to drop the lap times a lot and be in the top five.

“Happy for this, but we have to understand a bit what happened because strange that just changing the medium to the soft we improved the lap time like this.

“But I think it’s something that has to give us a lot of relief after what happened on the day.”

Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini was fastest on Friday in Indonesia with a new lap record, while Martin was only a fraction behind him.

Both of their long run pace on the medium tyre was strong, but Bagnaia believes he is closer to them than what his Friday suggests.

“I think that for tomorrow I feel good because we will go tomorrow morning with the used soft and in the sprint I think we will go with the soft,” he added.

“For the long race, I saw Enea and Martin were doing fantastic laps. Also Frankie [Morbidlli] this morning.

“So, I think we are more like them than what happened today, so I don’t want to think too much on what happened today.”