This week, before arriving in Portimão, Luca Marini had a day of private testing with Honda at the Jerez circuit. Despite finding interesting solutions for his RC213V, the rider also had a big scare with a crash in turn three very similar to the one Marc Márquez suffered there in 2020, injuring himself severely.
The Italian, who escaped unscathed, described to the press that a good base was found in this test: ‘It was good to have a day to enjoy the bike on a different track. It was a truly good test. I think we found a base on the bike that works very well in Jerez and I hope it works here as well [in Portimão]. It will be interesting to see on a different track if it is good or not. But we made good changes to the bike, because after the Qatar GP we analyzed everything during the GP, understood what went wrong. And now we are trying to correct it. I think we are on a good path now. I am just curious to see how the bike works here. And historically for Honda this is a better track than Qatar, so it is certain that we will be closer to the front riders‘.
Quoted by the Motorsport.com website, Marini revealed that on Wednesday of this week he had a strong crash on that day of testing in Jerez: ‘The bike was a bit damaged, but they managed to bring it here and repair it. Fortunately, I didn’t get hurt, but the crash was very strong. It was a crash similar to the one Marc Márquez had when he got injured in Jerez [in 2020], at turn three. Luckily the bike didn’t hit me, but the crash was the same‘.
