Francesco Bagnaia and Ducati faced their final chance this season to tackle the Italian’s corner entry problems away from a race weekend during Monday’s official Misano test.
Fresh from a nightmare home weekend - out of the points with 13th in the Sprint, then crashing out of seventh in the grand prix - Bagnaia needed to make full use of his final testing opportunity of the season.
Not for the first time this year there were signs of promise, Bagnaia finishing the day sixth and ahead of grand prix winning team-mate Marc Marquez in the afternoon session, for eighth on the combined times.
“I'm quite happy because we were able to focus more on this year's package. I have to say it's not easy to figure out which direction to take because, unlike in the past, you have to look elsewhere for performance,” Sky Italia quotes Bagnaia as saying.
“With all the time available today, we tried different solutions, we shifted the weight [balance] around, and I have to say we figured something out.”
Bagnaia, who suffered a crash at Turn 1 in the afternoon, was one-second faster than his best grand prix lap time - albeit set before crashing on lap 8 of 27 - with old tyres.
“I was quite competitive. In terms of pace, I was super fast. I did the best lap time with 21 laps in the tyres, something that I wasn't able to do in the last races, or during the season.
“It's true that this track is helping me a bit, but apart from the crash, it was a very good day.
“I don't know if we can bring everything to Japan, because we need to understand better the situation. But I'm quite confident that we were moving in a good direction.”
Having had several false dawns this season, the big question mark will be whether Bagnaia can pick up where he left off at next weekend’s Japanese MotoGP.
“We'll see. I think some solutions will definitely work, while others will need to be explored in more detail in Japan. The direction we've taken today is something that won't take long to become effective.”
"I saw Casey working on the bike!"
Former Ducati world champion Casey Stoner was seen assisting Bagnaia, both in and out of the pit box.
“This morning when I arrived, I saw Casey working on the bike!” Bagnaia revealed.
“It's fantastic to have this kind of relationship with him, it also helps me a lot with Manu Poggiali [Ducati rider coach and a former 125 and 250cc world champion].
“They have an incredible eye; they already knew what I felt on the bike, so it was great to have this kind of feedback also from another point of view.
“And Casey is always very analytical; it was super important for me to have him here today.”
Having lost touch with both his title-leading team-mate and Gresini’s Alex Marquez in the world championship standings, Bagnaia is now just eight points ahead of Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi in a close fight for third place.
