Surprise Friday MotoGP pacesetter in Germany says it’s ‘only good for the pictures’

VR46 Ducati MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio has played down his lap record in Friday practice at the German Grand Prix, noting “it’s great but maybe just for the pictures”.

After topping FP1 at the Sachsenring, all expectations were for Marc Marquez to continue that form into the hour-long Practice session on Friday afternoon.

But the championship leader - who won every German Grand Prix between 2013 and 2021 - ended the day third, having elected against a final time attack on soft tyres.

Fabio Di Giannantonio was able to use Marquez as a reference for his final laps and produced a new lap record of 1m19.071s to see out Friday fastest of all.

It is a marked improvement in time attack form for the Italian, who has stated in recent rounds that he needs to start higher up the grid to take profit of his strong race pace.

Reflecting on his day, Di Giannantonio moved to play down day-topping performance.

“Well, for sure it’s great, but it’s only Friday,” he told TNT Sports.

“We have to be realistic. We have to, for sure, have the feet on the ground and continue doing our work because we are doing a good job.

“But the important practice, let’s say, is the qualy of tomorrow, that here it’s super important to have a good spot on the grid for both races.

“And then for sure points are on Saturday afternoon and the race.

“So, great to be in front on Friday but just maybe for the media and the pictures. It’s good for the feeling but we just have to be focused and continue our work.”

On following Marquez at the end of the session, he added: “He’s always been super-fast here, so I really wanted to learn and study what he is doing to perform like that and try to follow him.

“Then at the end I saw I was a little faster on that run.

“I didn’t know that the tyres were different compared to him. So, I took some more space, I did my lines, my lap and it was great.

“But it’s always good to follow a rider that has won so much on a track like this.”

Saturday at the German Grand Prix is set to be heavily affected by poor weather, which has left Di Giannantonio keen to see if improvements made to the bike for wet conditions have actually paid off.

“I’m super curious about the bike [in wet conditions] because we changed so much the balance of the bike compared to the practices that we’ve done in wet at the beginning of the year, where my feeling was not fantastic,” he said.

“So, I’m really curious to see if I can find another good feeling on the wet like we have in the dry. It will be a day of discovery.”