Enea Bastianini identifies Mandalika weak point despite MotoGP lap record in practice

Enea Bastianini says he needs to improve sector two at the Mandalika circuit as he will need “the perfect lap” for pole at the MotoGP Indonesian Grand Prix.

The factory Ducati rider comes to this weekend’s race at Mandalika off the back of his second win of the season, which puts him just 59 points back of championship leader Jorge Martin.

On Friday in Indonesia, Bastianini smashed the previous lap record with a 1m29.630s to lead practice overall.

While pleased with his long run pace and one-lap speed, Bastianini has identified a weak point on the circuit he must solve as the closeness of the pack after Friday’s running suggests an even tighter qualifying on the horizon.

“I feel good,” he told the media, including Crash.net, on Friday.

“I’m happy about the day because this afternoon we was fast from the start.

“But it’s not easier because the medium rear needs two, three laps before being ready.

“Before this you have to take some risk to be fast. But apart from this, for the time attack I was ready and the bike has worked very well.

“It was important to me to go very fast on the first tyre and in the end I make my fastest lap with the first tyre.

“Now we have to work again and try to see the data because the sector number two I lose every time 0.1s, 0.150s.

“And for tomorrow I have to adjust a bit this situation. For the rest, it will be important to do the perfect lap tomorrow because every rider is so fast and we are very close together. We have to do it all very good.”

On the best partial times chart, Bastianini was the fastest through sector one on Friday, but dropped to sixth in sector two before rebounding into the top three in the final splits.

Looking ahead to qualifying, Bastianini noted that he had to take some risks during his time attacks but didn’t feel like he was as on edge as some of the other riders after a spate of front end falls in the second session.

“Yeah, I risked during [my time attack] especially with the second tyre,” he noted.

“But very small. I see some riders with the soft on the front. I was with the hard on the front.

“I don’t know if it’s better because I tried only this one today. But I remember last year I did the race that tyre and it was good.”