Marco Bezzecchi says he was not ‘worried’ to see Jorge Martin so far down the order in Practice for the San Marino Grand Prix, as he backed his Aprilia squadmates to bounce back on Saturday.
While Bezzecchi came close to breaking the lap record in Practice aboard the factory RS-GP, his team-mate Martin barely hung on to the final Q2 spot in 10th after struggling for speed throughout the day.
The situation was even worse at Aprilia’s satellite team Trackhouse, with Raul Fernandez finishing a distant 12th and Ai Ogura not even racing this weekend due to injury.
By contrast, much of Ducati’s line-up was competitive over a single lap on Friday, with four Desmosedici riders finishing inside the top five. Further, Fermin Aldeguer’s final timed run was hampered by a technical problem, leaving Francesco Bagnaia as the only Ducati rider failing to break into Q2 through lack of outright pace.
However, Bezzecchi sees no reason for concern after the opening day of running, saying he is confident that both Martin and Fernandez will be at the sharp end of the field from qualifying.
“It's only Friday, don't worry. You'll see that they'll all be there tomorrow,” he said.
“We're trying to focus on ourselves, working as hard as we can in the pit, and we'll try to figure out everything we can improve. We'll see what the others are doing when the time comes.”
Where Martin lost half a second
Although Martin was able to put together a clean lap at the end of Practice, he finished a distant 10th, 0.546s behind his team-mate Bezzecchi. The Spaniard was fortunate to get into Q2 amid a late flurry of improvements, holding on to the spot by just 0.016s. To highlight the narrow margins, Gresini’s Aldeguer was only 0.042s slower but ended up three places behind in 13th.
Martin stressed that he was “completely on the limit” on his time attack, but lost time because he felt uncomfortable on Michelin’s soft rear tyre.
“In the morning, I felt really good with the medium tyre. The bike was performing exactly how I wanted it to, and I was close to the front,” he said, having finished 0.267s off the top spot in FP1.
“I knew that in the afternoon, the feeling might change with the soft tyre, so I started with that compound from the beginning, and it was confirmed. I felt even worse than I expected.
“These are problems I've had since the beginning of the year. With the soft tire, I struggle more than the others in time attacks. We're going to work on it with the team.”
Nevertheless, Martin said he has more speed to unlock this weekend, saying his potential at Misano is higher than the fifth place he achieved at Aragon last time.
“As far as pace is concerned, I don't think I'm that far behind the leaders. I think I can be in the fight, but to do that, I need to improve my time attack.”
Why Fernandez failed to make it into Q2
Fernandez was one of the most high-profile riders to earn a direct berth into the second part of qualifying, ending up 0.572s off the pace in 12th.
The Trackhouse rider had finished third in the opening practice of the day and sat inside the top 10 for much of the afternoon session, until slipping down the order in the closing stages.
The Spaniard accepted full responsibility for his lacklustre finish to the day, revealing he failed to put everything together on his final push laps.
“It is not the result that we expected, but it was my mistake today,” he admitted.
“In all the practice, I was in top six-top 7, but I made two-three mistakes in the last two-three laps and I couldn't improve my time, so it was my mistake.
“Also, the feeling is not the one that I expected. I think that the change that we made between FP1 and Practice didn’t help my riding style.
“But it's Misano, everything is very close. You can see how many riders we are almost at the same time.
“For tomorrow, we have to improve. I think it's more my job than the bike’s.
In some corners, I am not in the line where I need to turn the bike, so it is more my job.”
