Pol Espargaro was hitting the Mandalika International Street Circuit for the first time with his red GASGAS RC16, so the first practice this morning was all about adaptation. With some resurfacing work having been done since the last race, there were a few things to get used to again, so the number 44 took these first forty-five minutes to build his base for the weekend. For the Practice session, he continued to work with his bike settings, getting the laps in, until it was time to go for the time attacks. He appeared more and more confident with his lap times starting to go down. While some riders went below the 1’31, Pol managed to ride his fastest lap in 1’31.276 in his last efforts towards the end of the session, but that was (another time) a bit short to make it to the top 10. He took the eleventh place, 0.047 seconds from the Q2 tickets. The pace is there, but he will have a big task in qualifying 1 tomorrow, with the likes of Francesco Bagnaia and Johann Zarco both being on the Q1 entry list.

Augusto Fernandez finally jumped back on his bike after his great result at the Japanese Grand Prix, but all had to be redone again, with the rookie hitting another track for the first time on the MotoGP™ machine. In Free practice 1, the feeling was not too bad, although he dedicated this session to try finding his marks, as every week. He was sixteenth of FP1 with a best in 1’33.139 (+1.328). A few changes on the bike were made at lunch time to try helping the rookie to find more comfort, changes which appeared to have worked according to the rookie’s feedback early into the Practice session. However, he crashed, taking Brad Binder down with him. He had to change bikes, but the feeling was not the same. Still, the rookie tried to make the best of his bike, until he took his time down to 1’31.806 in the final laps of the session. He finished eighteenth, and will have to go through qualifying one tomorrow. The MotoGP™ action from the Grand Prix of Indonesia will resume on Saturday at 10:10 local time (GMT+8).