Franco Morbidelli steered his A-Spec Petronas Yamaha to third place on the Friday practice timeshe𒈔ets for his home Italian MotoGP, despite being left a꧟ clear last on the top speed charts.

Morbidelli broke the speed trap in a best of 339.6kmꦉ/h during the after♍noon session, which compared with 357.6km/h by the Pramac Ducati of Michele Pirro.

But the figure that 'shocked' Morbidelli the most was that his 2019-based M1 was some 5.4km/h slower than the next closest bike on the speed charts, the Aprilia of r🦋ookie Lorenzo Savadori.

"Definitely, I'm happy to see myself in third position and the fact that when I🐻 look at the speed chart, I see myself so far from the top and also so far from the [next fastest rider] gives me pride," Morbidelli said.

"I realise that we are doing something great and this gives me confidence and en꧅ergy to keep working."

Th♕e re🍸igning title runner-up added that the near 20km/h difference to Pirro, "is a shocking number but not as shocking as the difference compared to the [next] fastest bike, 5k.

"There i༺s the whole speed chart [covering rest of the riders] and then there is me 5ks later.

"So here in Mugello it seems that we are struggling a bit more comp🅷ared to usual. We are working already to find some ways to imꦐprove on that."

But if nothing else, Morbidelli's performance proved once ꦰagain that being fast at Muꦺgello is about much more than straight-line speed.

"It felt great to ride again here," said Morbidelli, who is chasing his first Mugello podium this weekend. "I had a lot of fun today. Moreover I was fast with the soft tyre and I'm happy 🧸about that.

"We need to work a little bit more to see how we ar𒀰e with used tyres, but I think that so far, so good. We started well."

Morbidelli's performance also made him the top Yamaha on day one, just ahead of former team-mate and current world championship leader Fabio Quartararo (Monste♎r Yamaha).

The Frenchman's team-mate Maverick Vinales, qu🍰ickest in the morning session, slipp🎐ed to eighth overall in the afternoon with Morbidelli's factory-spec team-mate Valentino Rossi only 21st (+1.572s).