The rain messed up the plans for the second day of testing at Sepang, but the riders didn’t let themselves be discouraged by the difficulties encountered, on the contrary, they took advantage of it to work in wet conditions, a situation that will surely happen in the 21 races they will have to face in this 2023 MotoGP season.
Enea Bastianini in particular familiarized himself with the Desmosedici GP23 under the water, finding himself working with the new bike over the past three days having moved on to the factory team. For the Ducati rider from Romagna, the day ended with a ninth fastest time, almost half a second behind Day 2 leader and brand mate Jorge Martin.
The Ducati rider talks about his day and the work plan for Day 3, which will be the last day of testing in Malaysia: “My day didn’t go badly, at first it went like this in the dry. We did a lot of laps on used tyres, but I wasn’t very fast. Tomorrow we will work more in this area. In the afternoon, with the rain, we made a good step forward, especially with the engine. I think that for tomorrow this can help me to be faster and preserve the tires more”.
Enea Bastianini, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Bastianini is still familiarizing himself with the new bike, however with the GP23 he already feels that he already has a different power compared to last year, in which he had the 2021 version. He is also working to improve underwater with the new Ducati, although he is still adapting: “The feeling in the wet was really good with the new bike, I was fast earlier than usual. I think the bike is better than the 2021 in this area, but I’ve also taken a step mentally. I thought ‘ok, it’s like it’s dry’ and pushed”.
“The new bike is fast,” explains Bestia, speaking of the difficulties he’s having on the GP23. “But it’s difficult for me at the moment to carry speed out of the corner because I don’t have a lot of confidence in the rear yet. The strong point of this bike is different and I need to change my style a bit. I can’t enter too fast, I have to enter slower but use more speed when accelerating. Also the maximum lean angle is not correct for me but we have solved this problem in the wet. Now we hope to solve it in the dry too”.
Although the rain changed plans a bit, the Ducati rider is happy to have already tested the wet conditions: “These wet conditions were good for me. I didn’t push a lot but I tried to stay focused on the bike to understand how it is. Then I gave more information to my team. We have two new fairings, but we only used one today. Tomorrow, if it’s dry, we’ll try the other one too. They are very similar, but I will make the decision tomorrow.”
In Sepang, Bastianini was able to work more intensely with Marco Rigamonti, his new crew chief who replaces Alberto Giribuola this year: “He’s different from Alberto, but my relationship with him is good. They have a different method, but we work well at the moment. I’ll understand this better during a race weekend, but at the moment it’s going very well”.
Read also:
