QUALIFYING
Fastest on Friday, Maverick Viñales took once again the honours in Free Practice 2 this morning as Super Saturday kicked off at 10:10 local time in the hills of Tuscany. A fastest lap in 1'45.742 gave him extra confidence heading to an expected hectic Q2. With Fermin Aldeguer and Raul Fernandez joining the ten fastest of yesterday from Q1, the fight for the coveted pole position at the Mugello began. Maverick exited the pit box offset from the rest of the troops, to work out run 1 on his own. He completed a first lap in 1’45.044, before improving the second one to 1’44.915 to sit in a provisional 6th place heading back to the pit box. Marc Marquez already sat in a provisional pole position with an early 1’44.500. Still with more in the bag, ‘Top Gun’ rejoined the action with just 4 minutes left on the clock, while Fabio Quartararo had just clocked a fast 1’44.411 to reach the top. Marc Marquez replied with a 1'44.169, followed shortly by Francesco Bagnaia and brother Alex Marquez. Still on his own, Maverick’s late effort saw him ride a brilliant 1’44.514, which placed his RC16 on the second row, in 5th. Target achieved for the Spaniard with his best qualifying result with KTM! Enea Bastianini was close to his first Q2 at the end of play on Friday, just missing out on the top 10 by 0.126 seconds. After a positive FP2 in the morning with a fastest lap in 1'46.387 and the 11th position, ‘Bestia’ joined Q1 for the tricky fight for the top 2. He chose to follow rookie Aldeguer in his first run, and began with a first lap in 1’45.607 which sat him in provisional 2nd. He then improved to 1’45.481, and sat in 4th at the pit box return. The number 23 rejoined the action for run 2, and he was able to give a little bit more to a 1'45.370, which saw him end 6th of the session, meaning P16 on the grid of the Brembo Grand Prix of Italy for the local hero.

TISSOT SPRINT
The stage was set for the Tissot Sprint at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello. The conditions promised to be difficult for our stars, with extremely hot and humid air, while some grey clouds at the back of the grid began to threaten. Lights out! From 5th, Maverick took a solid start to position himself on the right to arrive to San Donato in 3rd, but a little scare at the braking had ‘Top Gun’ cool off and go a bit wide, to exit the slowest corner of the track in 5th behind Fabio Quartararo, with Pedro Acosta just behind. Maverick engaged himself into a battle for 4th with the Yamaha Factory rider, while Acosta crashed behind in lap 2. At the front, the battle for the lead between Ducati trio Marquez brothers and Bagnaia allowed Quartararo and Viñales to come back on them. Maverick held it close with Fabio, staying less than 0.1 seconds off the Frenchman, while Fabio Di Giannantonio behind was putting in the hot laps, and progressively closing on Viñales. No time to lose, the Red Bull KTM Tech3 rider took his chance entering lap 5 with Quartararo’s slipstream. A nice move on the inside of the #20 while keeping all doors closed allowed him to move up to 4th and escape, with Francesco Bagnaia just 0.7 seconds ahead. When just 3 laps remained, the Spaniard was still holding his 4th place with a solid rhythm, with faster lap times than 'Pecco'. We were down to a 0.375 second-gap two laps to the checkered flag, but that was not enough for Maverick Viñales to completely close on the two-time world champion. That’s a solid 4th place for Top Gun, his best sprint result of the season in KTM orange! Enea Bastianini was starting a bit far off his initial expectations in 16th, but that did not prevent the local hero from taking a rocket start as he gained 4 positions in the opening lap. In the next lap he lost a battle to Raul Fernandez and was in 13rd, but Acosta’s crash quickly gave him back P12. Jack Miller and Alex Rins both dropping saw Enea make a top 10 entrance, but it appeared that a mistake from Bastianini on lap 5 caused him a loss of position to Fermin Aldeguer. The gap was too big to completely close it, and Bastianini finished in P11. We know he has a bit more in the bag, especially at the Mugello, so we will be looking forward to finding out what the ‘Beast’ has in store for Sunday, with the main race scheduled at 14:00 (UTC+2), for 23 laps.