Sepang.- Despite trying in every way when the track dried up in the final part of FP2 and the drivers had just under eight minutes to attack the time on slick tyres, Pecco Bagnaia was unable to make the cut, and Although he posted the second fastest time of the afternoon session, he finished 11th in the combined times, just 3 thousandths away from being on the provisional list of drivers who will enter directly into Q2 this Saturday.
The detail is not minor, since the possibility of rain on the Sepang Circuit is evident and a wet FP3 would condemn the new and brand-new leader of the world championship, who is facing his first match point this Sunday, to go through the always uncomfortable and uncertain Q1.
“The decision not to put the new tire on at the end of the first test was mine. I didn’t expect the rain in the afternoon, but, furthermore, it was important to give the middle tire a spin”, Bagnaia justified the fact of not having attacked the time in FP1 in the morning, completed on a dry track.
In the afternoon, during Moto2 FP2, it started to rain excessively, a red flag was raised, the program was delayed for almost an hour and the MotoGP session started in the wet, drying up the track little by little.
“Of course it pisses me off not being in the top ten. Especially since it was my fault, a mistake I made,” explained the Italian at the end of the day.
“Despite this, I am happy. In the morning I am one of the few who improved with the used rubber. And in the afternoon, with water, I did not feel quite well but I finished well”, he summed up his first day in Malaysia .
The forecasts, initially, indicated that it was not going to rain on Friday and that it would on Saturday, for the moment those of the first day were not met.
“When I saw the rain I got worried, because if it rains tomorrow it won’t be easy to get to Q2 with the number of good drivers that we would find”, in reference to the many who have stayed in the cut.
The Sepang pre-season tests, in February, was a critical moment for Pecco, since it was when he considered that the 2022 Ducati engine was not suitable and forced to go back and mount the engines tested in the 2021 Jerez test, a change that, in the end, has turned out well.
“When I went out on the track this morning and saw that the bike had improved so much compared to the test, it calmed me down a lot,” concluded the Turin rider.
Combined times Friday Sepang
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