• Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) takes the honours in Mugello
• Bagnaia sets new race lap record of 1’46.588
• New MotoGP™ top speed record of 363.6km/h for Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing)
It was a home win for Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia as he won the Italian MotoGP race at Mugello during a weekend of strange weather and fluctuating temperatures, culminating in temperatures for Sunday’s race around 10 degrees cooler than they were on Friday and Saturday. Crossing the line in second and third places respectively were Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing).
In the course of the race, Bagnaia set a new race lap record of 1’46.588 on his Medium front and Medium rear MICHELIN Power slicks. Further back in the race standings, Jorge Martin set an incredible new MotoGP top speed record of 363.6km/h.
In the third round of the FIM Enel MotoE™ World Cup, which was making its debut appearance at Mugello, after starting from pole position Dominique Aegerter (Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE) took victory in Race 1 on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, Matteo Ferrari (Felo Gresini MotoE) equalled this performance by taking the win in Race 2.
With the mixed conditions on Saturday and the drop in temperatures on Sunday, race tyre choice was complicated for the teams as they only had the Warm Up session during the morning to try and gauge the optimum MICHELIN Power Slicks and set-up for the race conditions, but this turned out to be damp following some overnight rain. This led to a mix of tyre choices, with the majority going for the Medium front and the remainder the Hard, and for the rear tyres most went for the Medium with the rest opting for the Soft option.
On Friday the Free Practice sessions ran pretty much to form with a relatively gentle start in the morning’s FP1 and culminating with what has become the unofficial pre-qualifying shoot-out in FP2, with the riders trying to get some fast lap-times under their belts while the weather was dry. Times were fairly close with the top 15 riders separated by less than one second at the end of the day.
Saturday started dry and sunny, and FP3 saw most of the riders fitting Medium front and Soft rear MICHELIN Power Slicks towards the end of the session to push for direct access to Q2, and it was Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) who came out on top with a weekend’s best lap time of 1’45.393. In FP4 the rain started to fall early in the session, bringing the riders into the pits and effectively stopping them testing slick tyre options for the race. The light rain continued through the afternoon, along with thunder and lightning, leading to mixed conditions in the Qualifying sessions and giving the upper hand to those riders who were brave enough, and able to get a good feel for the damp track surface. Pole position was taken by rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Racing MotoGP) using Medium front and Soft rear slicks, with the following four places also going to Ducati riders.
Speaking following the race weekend, Piero Taramasso, Michelin Two Wheel Motorsport Manager, said: “We know the Mugello circuit very well, so although the grip reduced slightly in the hot temperatures on both Friday and Saturday afternoon, there were no surprises for us in terms of grip and consistency from our tyres – which were both at a very good level. In addition, the fact that the top 15 or so riders were all separated by less than one second in the dry Free Practice sessions shows that the allocation worked well for all teams during the weekend.
“The race tyre choice was difficult due to the change in temperatures on Sunday coupled with the fact there was no possibility to make any dry tests in FP4, but despite this the riders used the limited information they had and made their selection. These challenges had no negative impact on the race and our tyres worked very well, offering fast warm-up, grip and consistency which led to a race duration around two seconds off the shortest ever, a new race lap record, and a new MotoGP top speed record.”