Reigning Moto2 World Champion Enea Bastianini finished the first Qatar MotoGP test as fastest rookie, putting his satellite Desmosedici in 16th overall.
The Italian was only 1.5s off the pace of quickest man Fabio Quartararo and has learned that riding aggrerssively is not the way forward.
“I’ve ridden more smoothly and relaxed as with this bike you can’t ride aggressively. I finally got a good time in the middle of the session,” said Bastianini.
“We have started working with electronics and setup, the result of these three days is very positive. As a goal for the next test certainly improve gradually to get in the best conditions to the two races.”
Team-mate Luca Marini was the next best of the new-boys in 20th place but only a tenth further back while Jorge Martin was 21st and 0.027s further back after an early crash.
“Every day the feeling is improving and growing lap by lap. Unfortunately I crashed after three laps but there were no consequences, I felt that I was gaining confidence and I made a mistake. I’m very happy with these days and the things I’ve learned will help me to do better next week,” he said.
Works team boss Davide Tardozzi added: We are pretty happy about the rookies. We are confident they will grow during the year. We put no pressure, they have no pressure and they know that they have time to grow. So we see the season end of the season, what will be the result."
