Has Di Giannantonio set himself up for a breakthrough MotoGP weekend?

After a season in which he has tended to find his pace too late in race weekends, Fabio Di Giannantonio topped Friday afternoon practice at the MotoGP German Grand Prix.

It’s the first time he has achieved that feat this year in this particular session, which constitutes the first competitive session of a MotoGP weekend as riders jockey for passage through to Q2 on Saturday. And he did it in some style, clocking a Sachsenring record of 1m19.071s that edged points leader and circuit specialist Marc Marquez by 0.390s – the pair split by Alex Marquez who was 0.337s off.

Some of the Italian’s speed advantage can be put down to the fact that, among the top 10, only he and team-mate Franco Morbidelli (sixth-fastest) fitted a pair of new soft tyres for their final runs. And Marc Marquez did not appear to push at the end of the Friday afternoon practice, remaining on his used combination of hard front and medium rear.

Nonetheless, Di Giannantonio was unusually pleased with the feeling on the soft rubber. Unlocking that tyre’s potential has been an issue this season, which has led to him qualifying mostly on the second or third rows of the grid.

“We made a couple of changes on the bike to try to maximise the time attack,” he said. “But it’s difficult to say today that it’s better for qualifying for the rest of the season… you always have to try it for two or three grands prix. But today it worked.”

VR46 team manager Pablo Nieto was also pleasantly surprised with the performance over one lap with the soft tyre: “This morning in Free Practice 1 we tried the soft front tyre [on Morbidelli’s bike] and it was working! So we’re very happy.

“It was very important to try the tyre this morning and try to make a set-up for it, because that tyre is completely different. It moves a little bit more but has much more grip. We found a good set-up for it, so that was the way.”

If he can qualify well, it will unlock a good chance for Di Giannantonio to add to the podiums he scored in the USA and Italy, both of which featured him rising from seventh on the grid to third at the flag.

That seems particularly true in view of his pace in Free Practice 1. Although Di Giannantonio was an unassuming sixth on that particular timesheet, he was behind a number of riders who had bolted on new tyres and improved their times at the end of the session. Given that he was the fastest rider to copy the Marquez strategy of running the same set of mediums throughout the 45 minutes, he was effectively second quickest.

The gap between the two was ominous, at over half a second on the short Sachsenring layout, but it at least offered a case that Di Giannantonio could be in the fight for second in race trim. The fact that Alex Marquez is carrying an injury will add to the sense of optimism in the Roman’s camp.

Fabio Di Giannantonio, VR46 Racing Team

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

“We were fast in all conditions: race pace and time attack. It’s only Friday, I know, but it’s always good to start in this way,” Di Giannantonio added.

What may render all of this immaterial is the weather forecast for Saturday. If the predicted rain shows up on time in Saxony, Di Giannantonio is unsure what to expect. While he admitted that his feeling in wet races earlier in the year had not been good, he added that he was “curious” about whether that might have changed given the improvements to his base set-up of late.

Rain or no rain, however, Di Giannantonio was cautious in his optimism when talking to the press on Friday evening: “It’s only Friday. I’m just working with the team on unleashing all our potential. But the focus is on getting the best out of myself.”