Friday at the Indonesian Grand Prix marked MotoGP's dominant manufacturer Ducati's worst opening day of practice in recent memory.
Only rookie Fermin Aldeguer navigating his way to second place - on a day where four of his Ducati peers, including both factory team riders, missed out on the top 10 - stopped this from being a truly awful showing for the champion manufacturer, and even Aldeguer's lap still leaves this as a massive outlier for Ducati.
The last time its fastest bike was as much as 0.408 seconds off the pace in this session was Silverstone 2023 - when the new format was introduced under which only the second Friday session counted for advancing to Q2 directly (without Q1). And as for there being only one Ducati in the top nine in this session, that had not happened at all under this format.
"We need to work and understand what is not working [in our side of the garage], and also what is not working for Ducati [as a whole] - because all the Ducatis are struggling, apart from Aldeguer," summed up Pecco Bagnaia.
"And the tyres are the same as last year, and last year we dominated the weekend."
Ducatis in 2024 Friday afternoon session
1 Enea Bastianini
2 Jorge Martin +0.040s
3 Franco Morbidelli +0.079s
4 Pecco Bagnaia +0.082s
5 Marco Bezzecchi +0.140s
7 Marc Marquez +0.255s
9 Fabio Di Giannantonio +0.356s
21 Alex Marquez +1.368s
Ducatis in 2025 Friday afternoon session
2 Fermin Aldeguer +0.408s
10 Alex Marquez +0.745s
11 Marc Marquez +0.813s
12 Franco Morbidelli +0.868s
17 Pecco Bagnaia +1.256s
18 Fabio Di Giannantonio +1.256s
There is seemingly nothing in common between this Friday and Ducati's other memorably poor day of performance in MotoGP this year - the Sunday at the British Grand Prix. Likewise, there is no obvious through line uniting all of its riders who struggled today - but there are some clues.
Out of the ordinary
Many riders, not just those at Ducati, found the conditions at Mandalika to be unusual on Friday.
It is very warm and grip is at a premium, yet many riders have mentioned struggling to warm up the rear tyre, which here is of a particular spec - harder-construction due to the heat, like in use for the season opener at Buriram.
That by itself clearly has potential to shake up the order, with some feeling the change more keenly than others.
"At the end, the centre of the tyre is harder - and you just try to not spend a lot of time on that centre, because normally it has less grip than the sides. But, being honest, you don't change so much," said KTM's Pedro Acosta.
"I think some riders feel it more than others," said Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo.
"I think we are seeing always Ducati 1-2-3, for the first time they are not there.
"Aldeguer is second. So [the Ducatis are] not really suffering. I think some riders feel [the rear tyre change] more than others. I don't think it's any specific bike that is suffering more or less."
But the tyre factor isn't new to this year. And the weather readouts aren't hugely different to what they were in the corresponding session last year - yet the difference is drastic, for example, for someone like Franco Morbidelli, who is on the same spec of bike as he was last year.
"It was really tricky. The condition was, pfff, really difficult, it was really difficult to use the tyres and put some heat in the tyres."
VR46 team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio said he got a better feeling on the bike from some new parts Ducati has introduced to his arsenal - although those 'new' parts may well be 'old-new' parts given the ongoing GP25/GP24 intrigue, and the fact Di Giannantonio visibly switched to 2024-spec front aero. In any case, despite that better feeling, he acknowledged: "But the speed is not there at all. We struggled all the day with the rear grip, that is pretty unusual for me."
Bagnaia, who doesn't at all count Mandalika among his better tracks, was also surprised. "I was expecting more, I was wanting more, but somehow I didn't feel like in Motegi, I was feeling more like in Misano [during the race weekend] and it's quite strange because the bike theoretically is the same," he said.
"I think the results of today are like this for the conditions, that will increase [improve] - the grip will increase tomorrow morning also. I think for Sunday we will be ready to fight again."
Because of this, Bagnaia says his side of the garage has no intention to do anything major - or, indeed, anything at all - with the set-up, hoping that the usual track progression through the weekend will just take him into the right performance window.
"We will not change anything [on the bike], we will just try to understand the data tonight, because I already see a lap from Aldeguer that is impressive how his bike was tractioning, the traction he was having."
Where was Marquez?
On a weekend like this, newly-crowned champion Marc Marquez would be expected to carry the torch for Ducati - and perhaps thrive in the tricky conditions.
That did not happen - and while Marquez's curious decision to run behind in-strife team-mate Bagnaia at the end of practice seemed to contribute to him missing out on the top 10, he said strategy was not the decisive factor.
"Just the strategy was not to crash two times [earlier in the session]," he joked. "When I crashed two times, especially the second one, the strategy was 'finish the session and tomorrow will be another day'.
"[Then] we went out together [with Bagnaia] from the box, and of course in that time I was inside Q2, so was no reason to push in front, but then the problem is that we took three yellow flags in a row.
"But yeah, the priority was not to crash another time because I didn't have feeling today."
Like his Ducati peers, Marquez felt a lack of grip on the rear - and struggled to compensate. "For some reason this afternoon I was struggling more than usual, took a lot of time to warm up."
"It's not my circuit," he acknowledged.
So what's the outlook?
There's a couple of happy Ducati riders - Aldeguer, obviously, is one, but Alex Marquez is another. The younger Marquez had a shocking Friday at this track last year, but was more competitive here, sneaking into Q2 despite a crash and feeling a podium bid could be on based on evidence of Friday.
There's also a lot of rival expectation that the Ducatis will sort it out on Saturday, with Acosta saying: "Give it time. We know that Ducati are fast."
Are they fast enough, though, to beat or even trouble the runaway favourite after Friday - the electric Marco Bezzecchi, whose first place on Friday looked effortless and who is absolutely dominating the field in the second sector, an 18-second sequence of very high-speed corners?
The gap between Bezzecchi and Alex Rins, third-fastest in the sector, was bigger there than the gap between Rins and Bagnaia, 17th-fastest in the sector.
"From 11th you cannot go to the top straight away," cautioned Marquez.
"Especially, Bezzecchi is flying. If we can finish in the top five it will be a success."
