Danilo Petrucci (Octo Pramac Racing) shot to the top at the end of track action on Friday, heading Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Maverick Viñales by only 0.005 seconds on Day 1. The Italian is happy to have hit the ground running after a more difficult British GP, but says he's not feeling 100% as he suffers with some illness.
The premier class podium finisher also says there are some solutions to be found to the downsides with the Ducati aero-fairing, but that it is stable despite being harder to change direction:
Danilo Petrucci, P1: "Yeah, to be first I’m happy. At the last race at Silverstone we struggled a lot, so here I truly wanted to be fast from the beginning and since this morning the situation was good. It was a good situation because we tested here in mid-July, it was very hot. The only problem is that I have a cold and fever, and last night I only slept a few fours. I’m not 100% fit and because of this I slept at my house. I’m very fast even if the bike is not perfect, but I feel OK and tomorrow I hope to feel better.
"The feeling with the fairing is quite strange; we used the new fairing in Austria only and in Silverstone the bike was lighter to move. Now, the main problem is that the bike is very heavy to move. It is stable but it is difficult to change direction and lines in the corner, and this means the bike is very nervous in some corners, especially in the first sector. But, we feel that we get more of a benefit, even when not feeling well I must use all of my strength to move the bike. We will see tomorrow if we need to change something, but the aero of the bike with the fairing is very heavy and we will have to fix something."