The inaugural Grand Prix at the Mandalika Circuit started with tricky weather conditions today.
Following some heavy showers this morning, the partly resurfaced track still featured some wet parts and times were coming down slowly in the first session of the weekend, while FP2 took place under the burning Indonesian sun in full dry conditions.
Although there have been still some wet patches, Dovi started FP1 this morning straight away on slick tyres and eventually concluded the first session of the weekend in P12.
In the afternoon, it was not just the asphalt that was heating up, but also the pace of all riders. Thereby, the Italian WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team rider speeded up by 2.289 seconds compared to this morning and was missing out on the top 10 by just 0.197 seconds in eleventh position.
Dovi is aiming to make further steps throughout tomorrow’s important sessions, starting with FP3 at 10:50 local time (03:50 CET), followed by FP4 at 14:25 (07:25 CET) and the Qualifying at 15:05 (08:05 CET) and hoping for stable weather conditions.
Andrea Dovizioso #04
P 11“I still have to work a lot on learning how to ride the bike the correct way and until I manage to do that correctly, I have to basically put in double the amount of work. I still need some improvement and especially, when the grip is like this. I did a different strategy and started with the soft tyre, but it didn’t work. I managed to do some laps behind Franky (Morbidelli), which was very important to see how the bike is ridden correctly. The condition of the track was a bit better than during the test, there is still a line and you have to be really careful, when you leave it. This is going to be difficult for the race.”