Team Gresini MotoGP had a great debut day at Lusail, and it was especially the case for Fabio Di Giannantonio, who was quick in both today’s session and ended up second quickest in the afternoon’s key practice. There is still work to do for the Rome-born rider, who needs to find a better feeling with the front-end and to get a deeper understanding of how the different tyres behave on the new asphalt.
 
The yellow flag situations ad the end of the practice session prevented Alex Marquez from earning the direct seed to Q2. The Spanish rider, who worked hard on the bike set-up, will be forced to go through Q1 tomorrow, but the feeling he had this afternoon bodes well. 

2^nd - FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #49 (1’52.892)
“We did a good job, whie trying to focus on improving the front-end feeling. We need to keep working well and analyse all the tyre options in order to make the best decision for tomorrow’s sprint race and Sunday’s full encounter. We need to decide on whether to gamble on durability or speed. We were quick all day long, but we need to keep working tonight ahead of tomorrow’s sessions. The track is great, maybe the one that has improved the most from previous editions: there’s a lot of grip so it’ll be crucial to know how to play with the tyres.”
 
12^th - ALEX MARQUEZ #73 (1’53.561)
“The yellow flag situations were like a sentence… especially at the last corner when you get them after pushing hard for the whole lap. We could have comfortably been in Q2, likely lapping in 1’52.9secs, but flags sometimes helps and other times don’t… The track changed a lot from the morning, we worked on the set-up and I’m quite happy. The goal tomorrow is to get into Q2.”