“It disappears” - Brno MotoGP surface cures key Pecco Bagnaia issue

Pecco Bagnaia, who struggled to hide his dislike of the previous Balaton Park circuit, had a smile back on his face after Friday practice at Brno.

The factory Ducati rider not only praised the layout of the legendary Czech circuit, which allows a 1000cc MotoGP machine to be pushed to its limits, but was also boosted by the high grip levels.

The Italian finished the day in fourth place, sandwiched between the leading Ducati of VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio and factory team-mate Marc Marquez.

“I think if all of you just do two laps here, you would start smiling like I'm doing,” Bagnaia told the media.

“Because it's a fantastic track. You can literally enjoy every single lap, every single corner, it's a real track and it's fantastic to ride here.

“They also did a fantastic job with the tarmac, because the level of grip is high.

“You feel that you are putting 63 degrees in every corner.

“For us, it's fantastic, because you can use all the performance, all the power of these MotoGP bikes, that you can't use in many tracks.”

"As soon as I put the soft, it disappears"

The Brno asphalt helped Bagnaia’s main issue of rear grip, which he revealed is the opposite problem to di Giannantonio.

“My problem is not that the rear is pushing the front - Diggia has this problem,” said Bagnaia, on pole at Brno a year ago. “My problem is that I don't have the grip, so I'm on the opposite side.

“But luckily in this track the level of grip is so high that for me it's a big help.

“I still have this problem in some corners with the medium rear tyre, but as soon as I put the soft, it disappears. It's much, much better.

“But I think that with the work done today, we improved these kinds of things. We tried something that we had never tested before and it was a good help.

“For tomorrow, I think we will go in the same direction to try to make another step.

“Already with the first time attack I was directly in Q2, then with the second one I pushed a bit more but I didn't do a fantastic lap. So I have some margin.

“It's true that Aprilia right now is stronger than us, but we are working on it.”

Ai Ogura and Marco Bezzecchi topped the Friday timesheets for Aprilia.