A Friday is historically not the best day of a race weekend for Francesco Bagnaia🌠, but at this w🦋eekend’s Austrian Grand Prix the Italian was fastest of all on day one.

Bagnaia ✱set a new outright lap record in Practice on ♏Friday afternoon, closing out a day in which he did almost everything right.

“I’m happy because I think we did the correct things all day, apart from one thing that was trying the hard front [tyre],” Bagnaia told MotoGP.c🎀om at the close൲ of Friday. “I decide to not go with the hard front because I saw many riders crashing with that tyre,” he said, referring to crashes for riders including Brad Binder, Pedro Acosta, and Aleix Espargaro.

“Jorge [Martin] was quite fast with 🌞it,” Bagnaia said, “not as fast as with the medium [front tyre] but he 😼was quite consistent.”

The reigning champion also sought the advice of Enea Bastianini on the other side of the factory Ducati boxꦓ on Friday afternoon.

“I asked ♔him what was his feeling [with the hard-compound front tyre]. He said it was quite good, but on the left he had to be more patient. Honestly, I didn’t see so much confidence in his eyes, so I just decided to continue with the medium.”

Bagnaia said that, although he stuck with the medium-compound f♌ront tyre, he wasn’t completely comfortable with it. “But with the medium [front tyre] I’m not so happy, not so confident on the left side, [but] I just decide🐟d to go with the medium,” he said.

All in all, though, it was a positive day for 💞Bagnaia, who feels nea🌳rly ready to race.

“Honestly, everything is going well, I’m happy with the bike, happy with the feeling, the time attack went 😼well, and we have something to improve for tomorrow, but the bike is almost ready for the race.”

Looking ahead to the race, Bagnaia’s major concern is seemingly the weather. Asked if the hard-compound front tyre could be an option for the Grand Prix, Bagnaia said: “If it could ൩drop a bit, the temperature, it could be better for the medium.

“B🔴ut honestly it depends also in terms of rain, because it looks like on Sunday it could rain for the race, or we can have also a flag-to-flag race. But let’s see, it’s very difficult to know here, every day is changing a lot the weather. It was saying already that today was raining, tomorrow is raining, so let’s see. But, in any case, step-by-step, today we are happy and we have to be confident for tomorrow.”