KUALA LUMPUR: Ducati Lenovo Team rider Francesco Bagnaia fired a big warning to his rivals when he smashed the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) lap record yesterday ahead of the MotoGP season starting in Portimao, Portugal, next month.
The Italian clocked one minute and 56.682 seconds on the final day of testing at SIC.
On Wednesday, his teammate, Enea Bastianini, set the fastest lap time of one minute and 57.134s during the penultimate lap of the Sepang Official Test second day.
"I feel good with more or less everything. The thing we improved a lot was the power delivery today and it makes me very happy," said Bagnaia.
"The new fairing has really good potential but I still think we have to change a bit on the set-up to improve the feeling a bit.
"It's completely different compared to the old one, the one from last year's one," said Bagnaia.
The new aero will be homologated in time for the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix next month with an update to the bike planned for the British Grand Prix in August.
But it was not all smooth sailing for the other riders as Spaniard Raul Fernandez had to sit out the last two days of official testing.
The Trackhouse Aprilia rider had a big high side at Turn 11, the same place where Bagnaia crashed the previous day.
"First of all, I would like to say sorry to Aprilia and our Trackhouse Racing MotoGP Team. I had a big crash because of the track conditions. Honestly, I didn't expect that coming," said Fernandez.
