On the first day of the Pertamina Indonesian GP, the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team secures the direct Q2 both with Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is sixth, and Franco Morbidelli, ninth.
The Pertamina Indonesian GP race weekend kicks off in a positive way for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team. At the Mandalika track – where the Team always feels like home – Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli secured a direct Q2 spot in Friday Practice with the sixth and the ninth place respectively.
Di Giannantonio had a good start to the day, ending FP1 in seventh place after leading the timesheet for most of the session. Fabio improved both his time attack and his rhythm in Practice, where he confirmed to be a key contender and dominated the timesheet in the opening minutes. The rider from Rome ended Practice session in sixth place with 1’29”430 as his best lap time, which allowed him to access directly to Q2.
It was a positive Friday for Morbidelli too, right from FP1 he showed a good consistency staying in the Top10 with a sixth place. Franco made steps forward in Practice, where he improved his best lap time and proved to have a good rhythm. The Italian-Brazilian rider ended Practice with his best lap time in 1’29”693 and secured the direct Q2 with the ninth place.
The Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team will be back on track on Saturday for qualifying, which will begin at 10:50 am (local time, +8 UTC). The Sprint will follow at 3:00 pm (local time, +8 UTC). The Pertamina Indonesian GP will conclude with Sunday’s race, which will start exceptionally at 3:00 pm (local time, +8 UTC).
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“I am very happy with today’s work, it seems we started in a good way. We studied a lot what happened last week to be as much ready as possible at Mandalika, which is a track I love. Today, the feeling was good since the beginning, I had the potential to set good lap times. It’s a pity for the number of yellow flags that didn’t allow me to make a perfect lap as I wanted. But it was important to be precise and stay there. For tomorrow, we must optimize our packaging and get closer to the rivals. My goal is to have back the feeling I had some races ago and riding normally, but we are working well and I feel that it’s coming back.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“We’re directly in Q2, which means that Friday was good: we were very precise with our working program and it went well. Overall, our first day is good quite often and, before Mandalika, in other races too we were fast, even more than today. A great credit goes to all the team for making an amazing job and studying the right strategy. Now, let’s keep high confidence to be able to improve tomorrow. It was a positive Friday, but I need to improve even more if we want to aim for interesting results tomorrow. We stay confident and we keep pushing, being aware of our performance.”
