Mugello is never an event like the others for all Italian MotoGP riders. This doesn’t change even in a difficult moment, like what is happening to Luca Marini. Struggling with Honda’s technical crisis, the man from the Marche region is the only one who hasn’t scored a single point this season, so he arrives in Tuscany with a very different perspective compared to 12 months ago, when with a Ducati he could aspire to try to get on the podium. Now at most we can try to win what he called the “Honda Cup”, thus trying to get behind all the other RC213Vs, but this will not ruin the beautiful atmosphere of the Italian Grand Prix.
“Maybe it rains, maybe we go fast on the water,” Marini joked when he met the media on Thursday. Then he continued: “It’s a special Grand Prix, very particular for me. It’s what I look forward to most every year together with Misano. I really like the track, it’s fun, the atmosphere with everyone is nice. the fans. It’s clear that today we don’t come to the races saying that we will fight for the podium, but only to do our best, trying to develop the bike in the best possible way.”
Starting from this assumption, he then explained his objective: “I want to stay ahead of my brand mates on this track. It won’t be easy, but I will try and fight with them with the aim of winning the ‘Honda Cup’. In this moment is certainly the most correct one to ask ourselves, because we all have more or less the same package, but each of us always does our best to win this challenge between us.”
In the first races, his partner Joan Mir had often talked about a “Japan Cup”, but Luca currently sees the Yamahas as a little out of reach, and on this track he was already able to experience it first-hand in the test two weeks ago: “In the tests, Yamaha seemed really strong here, both Quartararo and Rins set excellent times. The feeling is that at the moment they are still a hair ahead of us with their work. But they didn’t even start as far behind as us, but I think our position is already better than at the beginning of the year. From race to race we are getting closer, so we have to continue working like this. I think that towards the end of the season we will be closer and we can have fun.”
Luca Marini, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
If nothing else, this weekend he will have at his disposal the new aerodynamic package that Johann Zarco has already brought to the track in Barcelona: “Here we will have some upgrades, something more than at the Catalan Grand Prix, and maybe it can help us get closer. We have saw several positive aspects in the aero that Zarco used, so we will use it during the weekend and we will not waste time waiting for the test. It is probably not enough yet, but we know that it works of aerodynamics, because we know that especially Ducati and KTM manage to improve a lot from year to year, and recently Aprilia is also doing so.”
Zarco revealed that recently he has also had joint meetings with all the brand’s riders. An idea that according to Marini is positive, because it can help the Japanese company speed up the process of getting closer to the best.
“If they are requested by the engineers, we will do it willingly. I have said several times that in my opinion we must try to work more together at this moment in which we cannot fight for something important. Then when we are fighting for the top 5 and the podiums , everyone will do their job. Now in my opinion we just have to try to reduce the time it takes to get back to the top because we will definitely get back there, but we don’t know how long it will take”, he concluded.
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