Defending MotoGP champion Pecco Bagnaia described his 24-point deficit to title rival Jorge Martin as "not a lot" in the lead-up to the Indonesian Grand Prix.
Given negating that would equate to four points per remaining round, he is correct, but on evidence of Friday practice at Mandalika there is a prime opportunity here for Martin to extend said gap, and it is one he really should take.
In conventional Bagnaia fashion, the two-time champ didn't really trouble the top spots through Friday practice until the final runs, which is when it counts, anyway.
But Bagnaia's obvious relief at the end of the day demonstrated that it was not necessarily a conventional Bagnaia 'slow burn' - especially as it reminded Bagnaia of last year's Indonesian Grand Prix, when he struggled on Friday, got trapped in Q1 and had to tackle both races from 13th on the grid.
"I was living again the nightmare from last year," admitted Bagnaia of his Friday this time around. "I think my team, too, we were a bit under pressure.
"But luckily as soon as I put a new soft [rear tyre], everything was fantastic again.
"I don't know why, but on the right corners I was struggling a lot, I was losing seconds to the leaders. The two with the same tyres as me were Martin and Enea [Bastianini], they were doing [1m]30.6[s], I was doing 31.6, 31.5.
"I was a bit struggling, everything we tried was not working. It was a strange situation.
"As soon as we changed the rear tyre and we put the new soft, everything was back again, it was fine. It's helping me a lot to feel much better and to be more calm, because if it wasn't like this, it would've been a problem."
The end result was no cause for alarm at all - Bagnaia ended up 0.042s off Martin, proving himself perfectly competitive over one lap.
But there is reason to believe the real gap at the end of Friday was slightly bigger, given both Martin and new lap-record setter Enea Bastianini left laptime on the table in their final runs.
"The day was really good, I am super happy. Straight away in the first run already I was fast - and then I was fast all day," summed up Martin.
"With the pace I'm really impressed how fast we're going. It seems like Enea is also quite competitive at the moment, but let's see tomorrow."
As Bagnaia referenced, before that second Friday practice switched into 'Q0' mode, both Bastianini and Martin were running riot on a medium rear.
Martin, in particular, logged five 1m30s laps, whereas Bagnaia never got close to that 1m30s range at all until he switched to softs.
"I think for tomorrow I feel good," insisted Bagnaia. "We will go tomorrow morning with the soft used, and on the sprint I feel we will go with the soft.
"For the long race, I saw that Enea and Martin were doing fantastic laps, also Franky [Morbidelli] this morning.
"I think we [in our real pace] are more like them than what happened today. I don't want to think too much on what happened today."
On current evidence, though, it can only be surmised that Bagnaia is at least half a step back.
And if his medium-tyre discomfort remains later into the weekend, there is a realistic possibility for Martin to not just preserve his points lead, not just extend it, but perhaps even raise it beyond that 37-point mark that represents what can be overturned in a single weekend.
Of course, the situation was already similar last year, and perhaps it was being spurred on by the knowledge that he needs to press his advantage that aided Martin in crashing out of a comfortable Sunday lead - while Bagnaia fully overcame a 13th-place grid slot to win in his stead.
That was, effectively, a 30-point swing. If both Martin and Bagnaia stay on, there won't be a points change that dramatic - although there's room for it to be substantial still.
The Friday outlook is that the Ducati GP24s are a cut above the rest again, with the GP23s only marginally competitive - and Marc Marquez in particular limited by a track that he hasn't really gelled with yet - and the other brands appearing to be non-factors.
But Bastianini is a credible threat to take points off either Martin, Bagnaia or both - and so is Franco Morbidelli. If the track conditions take a turn for the less optimal - due to overnight rain or any other twist of weather - Morbidelli's 1m30.689s to top opening practice when the track was still 'green' suggests he could borderline dominate.
After Bastianini did team-mate Bagnaia a 'solid' last time out by barging his way past Martin for the win, Pramac is hoping that Morbidelli might play his part in the title head-to-head in Bagnaia's favour.
Him doing so deliberately is a pipe dream, as Morbidelli is close to Bagnaia through their VR46 Academy status and has no long-term future with Pramac anyway, but there's still probably a scenario in which Martin wins and Bagnaia is denied even a podium by the other GP24s.
And that would suddenly create a firm favourite in this knife-edge, rollercoaster title race.
