Enea Bastianini admitted he made steps forward “in all directions” on his Tech3 KTM MotoGP bike after the season opener in Thailand.
Bastianini finished ninth in the Thai Grand Prix but struggled in the Sprint race the day before, finishing third-last at a track where he had won the Sprint the previous year.
The Italian moved over to KTM in 2025 after leaving the factory Ducati squad following the arrival of eight-time champion Marc Marquez.
To put his progress into perspective, he finished 23.9s behind the Spaniard in the Sprint’s 13 lap race, but reduced the gap to 20s after the Sunday race, where race distance had doubled to 26 laps.
“We took a step forward in all directions, that is, we were able to sort out the bike a bit, something we had lacked in the tests,” he stated to GPOne.
“This weekend on the other hand, we worked better, step by step, without any revolutions and a good base was found that allowed me to start today knowing what I had in my hands and almost being able to take it to the limit.
“I still have the bike in my hands recently and there is definitely still a lot of margin [to improve on].”
Earlier in the weekend, Bastianini rated his feeling on the RC16 as a “1 out of 10”, but after Sunday’s ride through the field he showed how much better he now felt.
“Today [Sunday] I felt more comfortable. Until yesterday, we were at 1, now I’d say we’re up to 4 and I feel in a much better condition than when I got to. Results aside, the feeling has improved.”
Enea Bastianini pinpoints area of improvement
The Tech3 rider pinpointed the areas needed to improve the Austrian marque in the forthcoming races.
“The corner entry and the first phase of the exit are the points where we lose the most, there we can’t turn the bike and it happens that we lose there 5/6 km/h that we then carry late throughout the exit.
“There is a weakness that affects us a lot, especially at the beginning of the race, whereas the tyre starts to go down, we are consistent.
“On the last lap we also had a good battle with Brad [Binder] and compared to what was seen in practice the pace was better overall.
“Now I’m curious to go to Argentina because I think some things will be able to help us there.”
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