Initially the Italian weather didn’t play ball at one of MotoGP’s most iconic weekends of the year. Thanks to heavy morning rain, the undulating 5.25km-track was still damp when FP1 kicked off. After some exploratory laps on slick tyres, Viñales got to grips with the conditions while gradually lowering his lap time to end the morning in a highly encouraging 4th with Bastianini 17th. 

Temperatures had risen come the afternoon Practice session and conditions were close to perfect. Bastianini showed immediate speed and was well placed inside the top ten when red flags were shown 30 minutes in due to a crash for Fabio Quartararo at Turn 4. 

The session was stopped again as trackside marshals retrieved a retired bike, which set up a mini-qualifying shootout over the final 12 minutes. Again, Bastianini was strong and jumped up to third on the second lap of his final run.

As well as demonstrating strong pace over one lap, ‘La Bestia’ showed off the KTM RC16’s awesome straight-line speed and was fastest through Mugello’s speed trap, reaching 358.8kph in front of his home crowd.

After missing two rounds due to corrective surgery, Viñales was getting up to speed while adjusting to a revised technical set-up with his KTM RC16.

‘Top Gun’ noted greater strength and mobility in his right shoulder but is still struggling to be precise on the bike as his condition improves. Despite this the Spaniard’s best time of 1’45.469 was just 0.66s off Fabio Di Giannantonio’s quickest best – and 0.3s back of a place in the top ten.  

The high-speed action continues in the Tuscan hills on Saturday with thirty minutes of track time in FP2 at 10:10 CEST (UTC+2) where Viñales and Bastianini will fine-tune their preparations ahead of Qualifying. The all-important Q2 takes place at 11:15 (UTC+2), which will decide the grid positions for the 11-lap Sprint race at 15:00 (UTC+2).

Enea Bastianini: “I’m really pleased with today and I think the team did a great job. During the Barcelona test I compared my data with Pedro [Acosta], because he’s the reference in KTM right now. I could see that I was losing every time in braking. So, I worked on that and was curious to see how it would be at this track. I’m happy because the time attack was easier than before.

“Now we need to work on our feeling with the used tyre because we’re missing something. In the fast corners, I have a floating feeling with the rear and miss a little grip on the front. But we’ll try to resolve this for tomorrow. I’m confident we can have a great weekend.”

Maverick Viñales: “Mugello is tough! It’s good because this track is great training for my body, but it’s hard as I’m still recovering my full strength. When I went for the time attack, I felt like the bike was in control instead of me. I felt slow through Arrabbiata 1 and 2 and I couldn’t be precise – and you need to be precise at this track.

“It’s not a bad feeling. I’m closer than I was in Barcelona but I’m still not at my 100%. The bike was working well, and I like the feeling. The improvements KTM has made are good. It’s just a matter of working on myself and making myself stronger. Being patient is very important right now.”