Luca Marini was 17th on the second day of MotoGP testing in Sepang and expresses some concerns about the performance of the Honda RC213V – particularly with the more worn tires.
The new Repsol Honda rider told the press: ‘Difficult, difficult. We had some difficulties. We need to work. Today we tried several things, reaching the race simulation with a set that is not yet ready for me – also in terms of tuning. We need to work more with my chief mechanic. We are still heading in a good direction, but we need more time. I expected more from the race simulation, because with used tires it is difficult to ride. When the rear tire breaks, the handling changes a lot, so it is difficult to continue attacking with good lap times. But we know what we need to improve, we just need more time‘.
According to Marini, although it is necessary to take risks with new tires, in these conditions the bike performs well but poses difficulties when the tires are already worn: ‘I expected to have fewer difficulties, because when you start running with new tires it is not so bad. Also, if you look at Joan’s lap time [Mir], it is very good. You need to take a lot of risks, you need to attack a lot to go to 1m57s for now. But the bike works, while with used tires we are having a lot of difficulties. It seems that the gap between us and the first with used tires is greater. Then, Joan is only six tenths behind Jorge [Martín] in the qualifying lap‘.
#10 also ensured that the problem is not the tire consumption itself: ‘The tire consumption is good. It is the way the tire is pulled by the bike. The tires change a lot during a race compared to Ducati. We need to work in this area, to improve how we carry the rear tire, how we make the rear tire worse, because our bike was very good in the front – you have to pull a lot in the front, risk a lot in the front to make good lap times and also for the race. But we need to work on the rear because Ducati is very strong in using the rear tire – not with consumption, but using it properly.’‘
