Luca Marini had a good weekend in Thailand, qualifying on the front row, in second place, taking 3rd position in yesterday’s Sprint race. Still, in today’s long race, the Moonery VR46 rider did not go beyond 8th position, which would become 7th place, after Aleix Espargaro’s penalty.
In a debrief after the race, the Italian rider revealed that he was not satisfied with his race, expecting a little more from himself, revealing that the rear tyre was the Achilles heel in today’s race:
– Good, but anyway, it’s not enough. This wasn’t the result I wanted, because I expected a little better. Admittedly, the guys in the top 3 today were very strong, very fast. I was trying to manage the rear tyre a lot, but in the end I finished before the other riders; my tyre. I was struggling mainly with stopping the bike and on the entry (in the corner), because when I was sliding it was difficult to turn inside the corner, so that was penalizing my exit, but the problem was on the entry, in my opinion. I spoke a little bit with the other riders and they said that for them the rear tyre was ok, at least until 4 laps to go, when for me it was 9 laps. We need to look at the data and understand where I was using the rear tyre too much and putting 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 is important to keep the temperature of the tires low.
The #10 stressed that he believes that the fight with Marco Bezzecchi was not the main problem, as he already felt some difficulties before entering the battle with his teammate:
– Maybe so, maybe so. We have to look at those laps and see if I did something different. I honestly don’t know; at that moment I didn’t feel like I was doing anything crazy. Just riding. The thing is, before the battle as Bezz, I was already struggling with the rear tyre, so I couldn’t defend much, I was already having a lot of difficulties braking.
Luca Marini also said that his high height and weight may have been important for the wear of the rear tyre, resigning himself to something he cannot change:
– Yes, it’s something that’s physical. So that might have been the difference, but as a rider I can’t make excuses for it, because it’s something I can’t control, I can’t change, we just need to find maybe a better solution or maybe understand something we can do with the throttle or do something different. Use my body in a different way, perhaps.