Red Bull KTM Tech3 team was back in action on Friday at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, kicking off an intense period of nine races in twelve weeks. 

Despite heavy overnight rain, the tight, narrow 4.23km track was dry for the day’s two MotoGP sessions, with temperatures a moderate 25 degrees in the afternoon. It was a highly competitive day, with 0.6s covering the top twelve names in Practice. 

Confident his experience testing around this track on countless occasions would pay off, Espargaró showed sensational speed all day. The rider standing in for the injured Maverick Viñales was eleventh in FP1. A late time attack then saw him rise to a sensational ninth at the close of Practice. 

The 35-year-old was working with a different support on his fuel tank through the day, which improved the rear traction of his KTM RC16. Thanks to these changes, Espargaró is confident of replicating his Friday feats in Qualifying on Saturday.

Riding at his home round, Bastianini experimented with a different setting in FP1 as he finished 15th. ‘La Bestia’ then reverted to the set-up which served him well in Aragón and rose up the order with nine minutes to go of Practice to sit fifth. Unable to go faster in a second time attack, he was shuffled back to eleventh at the close of the hour-long session. Just 0.014s separated him and a top ten place.

Saturday promises to be a busy day with Espargaró and Bastianini back in the saddle in FP2 at 10:10 CEST (UTC+2) before Qualifying starts at 10:50 (UTC+2), which determines the grid for the 13-lap Sprint at 15:00 (UTC+2).

Pol Espargaró: “I cannot explain how I did that! It was crazy. When I did the first time attack, I did a 1’30.8. I pitted and thought it would be impossible to improve that, it felt so fast. I told my crew that it felt like I was over the limit all the time. But then I went back on track with Pedro (Acosta) and Marc (Marquez) in front, and in the end, I could go even faster. Following them was an amazing experience that I’ve been missing for many years. After Aragón I changed the tank position, so I am further back on the bike. It’s the first time in my career I’ve put something there. With our bike, it seems the further back you are, the more traction you have. So, I’ve changed my way of braking and opening the racing lines and it seems to be working here!”

Enea Bastianini: “This afternoon we’ve improved a bit and I was confident of getting into the top ten, but I struggled with the front tyre and couldn’t improve in the second time attack. Anyway, tomorrow we have another chance to get into Q2, and we need to use it. We tried something different with our set-up this morning, but I didn’t like it, so we reverted to our Aragón setting and it’s working quite well. From my point of view, we can improve in some areas still, but I don’t think we’ll change a lot for tomorrow. I want to continue gaining confidence with this set-up. I feel like we’re closer at the moment and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow in Qualifying.”