MotoGP | Marini held back by a problem: “But there is also something positive”

Luca Marini also knew that the transition from Ducati to Honda would not be a walk in the park, but probably not even in the most pessimistic of forecasts would he have imagined being able to finish his first race as an HRC rider in penultimate position, over 20″ behind his teammate. of garage Joan Mir. Among other things, precisely on a track like Lusail, where just three months ago he had achieved pole position.

But there is an explanation for the disappointing performance of the rider from the Marche and it is very simple: not everything went according to plan on his RC213V. “It's obvious, because I was going too slowly, but there was a problem. I can't tell you what it was, but it was something simple, which could be solved immediately”, confirmed Marini.

According to Luca, however, not everything is to be thrown away, because at least he had the opportunity to battle a bit with Jack Miller, who had fallen in the early stages of the race and restarted behind him. Which allowed him to keep in training in hand-to-hand combat, but also to glean some useful information for the development of his bike.

“I think there is something interesting to take out of this race, because in the end I was lucky and caught Miller on the track. I saw on the board that I had someone behind and I wondered who it could be. Then I saw that they put out the table also to Jack and when he arrived I let him pass, because I was worried about the pressure of the front tire”, he explained.

“Since we did the quick restart procedure, I was afraid that I might be out with that too and get a penalty as well as having sucked. I said to myself: 'I'll attack behind him, at least we can have some fun'. had a good battle and this is the only positive thing, because between this one with Jack and the Sprint one with Morbidelli at least I kept warm for the next races. Then I had the opportunity to observe the KTM, which is a very fast bike, and to understand that when we are behind another motorbike the behavior of ours changes”, he added.

Despite the bad Sunday, Marini is confident that he will be able to give new ideas to his technicians to speed up the growth process of the bike: “In general, apart from the problem that occurred, the riding sensations were more or less the same yesterday. We tried something in the Warm-Up, which didn't change things, even if I understood something about the bike.”

“When we had the meeting with the engineers I told them everything I think and afterwards we will have another meeting to discuss the matter, because in my opinion the bike can be improved and it is quite simple. However, these are obviously my problems, not I know those of Mir and Zarco, who had a decent race”, he concluded.