Luca Marini had a good weekend in Thailand, qualifying on the front row in second place and finishing 3rd in yesterday’s Sprint race. However, in today’s long race, the Moonery VR46 rider could only manage 8th place, which was later converted to 7th place after Aleix Espargaró’s penalty.
In the debrief after the race, the Italian rider revealed that he was not satisfied with his performance, expecting more from himself and pointing out that the rear tire was his Achilles’ heel in today’s race:
– Well, but anyway, it’s not enough. This was not the result I wanted, because I expected a bit more. It’s true that the guys in the top 3 today were very strong, very fast. I was trying to manage the rear tire a lot, but in the end I finished before the other riders; my tire. I was struggling mainly in stopping the bike and in the entry (into the corner), because when I was sliding, it was difficult to turn into the corner, so that was penalizing my exit, but the problem was in the entry, in my opinion. I talked a bit with the other riders and they said that the rear tire was okay for them, at least until 4 laps from the end, when for me it was 9 laps. We need to look at the data and understand where I was using the rear tire too much and generating too much temperature. And if we find the solution to this, maybe in Malaysia it can be the same because there is also too much temperature there, so it’s important to keep the tire temperature low.
The #10 pointed out that he believes the fight with Marco Bezzecchi was not the main problem, as he was already experiencing some difficulties before entering into battle with his teammate:
– Maybe yes, maybe yes. We have to look at those laps and see if I did something different. Honestly, I don’t know, at that moment I didn’t feel like I was doing something crazy. Just riding. The issue is that before the battle with Bezz, I was already struggling with the rear tire, so I couldn’t defend much, I was already having a lot of difficulties in braking.
Luca Marini also mentioned that his height and weight may have been important for the wear of the rear tire, resigning himself to something he cannot change:
– Yes, it’s something that is physical. So that may have been the difference, but as a rider I can’t make excuses for this, because it’s something I can’t control, I can’t change, we just need to maybe find a better solution or maybe understand something we can do with the throttle or do something different. Use my body in a different way, maybe.
