Factory Ducati MotoGP man Danilo Petrucci was fast on both the medium and hard rear tyres, en route to topping the opening day of free practice in Jerez.

The Italian found himself just 0.097 seconds ahead of his Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizioso when a red flag came out. Happy to not only be topping the session, Petrucci said that he felt in control of the bike on more than one tyre compound.

“I can ride the bike like I want,” said the factory Ducati man.

“Even if I didn’t do a perfect lap on the last one, luckily I had a chance before the red flag, so I’m quite happy. I have very good pace and we had a chance this afternoon to try different types of tyre. We tried the hard and the medium and we’ve been fast.

“Tomorrow we have to focus more on the flying lap because this year my weak point was the qualifying. I didn’t qualify on the first two rows, and in Qatar and Argentina it was a big problem to fight for the podium.”

With just one podium since 2013, the Ducati has struggled around Jerez, however, a 1-2 after the opening day suggests the GP19 could have cured the issues the Italian factory have been facing in recent years.

When asked about the new bike, Petrucci said: “At the end Ducati last year was not so bad.

“For sure the gap to Marquez was quite big. But we can’t follow the riding style of Honda, Suzuki or other brands because we have our strong points and we have to work on this and try to work on our weak point, which is the turning of the bike without the brake.”