Luca Marini scored important points again in the MotoGP World Championship yesterday in the long race at the Australian Grand Prix and regretted losing a few positions in the first laps, partly due to Marc Márquez’s problems at the start. He later admitted that the feelings he had were the best so far this season.
‘On my side I’m satisfied, we have to be happy because it was an incredible race and with an unbelievable pace for everyone. With these conditions, sunny and cool, it provided me with my best day in Phillip Island, having enjoyed the bike on this beautiful track’ Marini began by telling the press, before recalling the troubled start of the race due to… Márquez:
– The start of the race didn’t go so well, I had some bad luck because Marc [Márquez] spun at the start and forced me back and I lost a lot of positions in the first two or three laps.
Then there were difficulties in bringing the hard rear tire on his RC213V up to the best temperature: ‘Then we had some problems with the hard tire, on the left side of the tire, and it took me many laps to get the edge up to temperature and that’s why we weren’t able to fight with the others, especially the KTMs and Aprilias, because we were slow at the beginning but then when the tire was ready the pace started to be quite competitive and I was able to have a lot of fun’.
However, the damage had been done, which limited his recovery, with Marini asking Honda to continue working on solving the problems with the rear of the bike, since he even had some of the best sensations this season:
– The problem is that I was alone and without slipstream I wasn’t able to recover the gap to Johann Zarco and the Yamahas, but I believe the race was positive in the end. The pace was competitive and the feelings with the bike were the best of the season and so we have to continue working this way, and try to understand how to make the rear tire work better, which has been a problem since the beginning of the season.