Luca Marini returned to the podium with a third place finish in the MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix. He was unable to fight for the win against Fabio di Giannantonio (Gresini/Ducati) and Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), but believes his pace was sufficient and he fell victim to race circumstances.
The Mooney VR46 Racing Team rider stated in a press conference that Bagnaia taking the lead early on foiled his plans: ‘I am really happy with the weekend, we did a very solid job. The feeling with the bike was good. I knew that I probably wasn’t the fastest because Fabio showed us a very good pace since Friday. It’s just a shame because Pecco made a fantastic start and my plan was to start well and be first at the end of the first corner and try to open a gap to them because I knew that with the [tire] soft I maybe had something more in the left corners in the first two laps. But, then, when I saw Pecco in front, I said: “Well. Let’s manage the tires a little bit”’.
Following that, Marini stated that he ended up wasting time behind other rivals, which cost him the possibility of winning: ‘Fabio and Alex [Márquez] were attacking me from behind, they overtook me and then I lost a lot of time with Alex and Brad [Binder], so the opportunities to win were gone. But I just tried to manage the tires in the best way because with the soft front when you reach too high a temperature it is very difficult to ride. For my starting position the choice was to mount the soft. I could have also competed with the hard, but the plan was different. But I am very satisfied with my performance, my tire management was good and I think I had the pace to fight with them for the win. But I lost too much time during the race‘.
