Andrea Iannone says the only limit he has on the Ducati GP23 “is me” following his first MotoGP race in five years and admits “I’m not ready for this bike”.
The one-time grand prix winner put in a solid performance on Saturday morning in Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying to put his VR46-run Ducati 17th on the grid, just 0.548s off top spot in Q1.
In his first MotoGP contest of any kind since serving his four-year doping ban, Iannone was second-to-last in the sprint and 13 seconds from the next-best Ducati, which was team-mate Marco Bezzecchi.
Asked by Crash.net how he found his first race since Valencia 2019, Iannone replied: “Difficult. But MotoGP is like this and you need to understand this situation.
“So, it’s after a long, long time. Five years, it’s completely changed. It’s another story.”
Iannone added that he was able to understand better how to extract speed from a modern MotoGP bike, but says the biggest limit remains his physical condition.
“Today I understood the limit,” he said.
“The more you push, the more the bike is better. It’s like this, impressive. The more charge you put on the bike, the more speed you have and the more grip the bike has.
“But the limit, for me, at the moment the package is really good, the garage work really well.
“The guys, the team is amazing. It’s like a factory team. The limit is me, my physical condition. I’m not ready for this bike.”
When comparing MotoGP and World Superbikes, Iannone likened the latter to “a bicycle” in terms of the physical requirements.
Looking ahead to the 20-lap grand prix on Sunday, Iannone says managing his strength will be more critical than tyre conservation.
“I need to manage my drop – not the tyres,” he joked.
“The drop of the tyres, the garage manages. But I need to manage Andrea. I need to decide: to make five laps like a king, or to do 20 laps like a nobody.
“This is the question. I possibly start like qualifying, I make five laps unbelievable. In the end, I go in the garage, [say] ‘guys, the best five laps of my life’. But the race finish. Sprint of sprint.”
Bezzecchi offers helping hand in qualifying
Iannone followed his VR46 team-mate Marco Bezzecchi in the Q1 session and believes without a mistake on his best lap that he could have gone “two tenths, two tenths and a half” quicker.
Asked if he learned anything following Bezzecchi, Iannone said: “Yes, I think I also have the speed. After a long time, my speed is intact, more or less. It’s quite good.”
Bezzecchi revealed Iannone asked him ahead of qualifying if he could use the three-time grand prix winner as a reference, which the former obliged.
“He yesterday he asked me if he could start behind me, and I said ‘yes, for sure’,” Bezzecchi, who was 10th in the sprint, said.
“I knew he could go very fast in one lap. He made an amazing lap time considering he wasn’t riding MotoGP for almost five years.
“So, I was quite surprised by the lap time. Fortunately he didn’t beat me. We spoke a bit and he’s a fucking good guy, so I like.”
