Luca Marini shone on a gloomy day at the Australian GP, taking his best Qualifying and Sprint results of year while still hungry for more. Repsol Honda Team teammate Joan Mir plays it safe and targets Sunday comeback.
Luca Marini was a man on a mission as Saturday’s action began at Phillip Island, the Italian unphased by the drying conditions of the morning. Despite the track still wet in parts, the #10 was straight out on slicks for Q1 and put in his best performance of the year. Pushing until the very end, Marini would go top of Q1 as the flag came out but would ultimately finish the session in third – only 0.189s shy of a first Q2 appearance as a Honda rider.
With a steady start to the Sprint, Marini was able to master the conditions and fought for points until the very end. His fine form continued, and he earned his best Sprint result of the year with tenth place. A positive end to a potentially troublesome Saturday.
After a day on unlocked potential on Friday, Joan Mir was hopeful of delivering on that potential and challenging for the top ten on Saturday. Unfortunately, the change in conditions left Mir and his team with work to do to rediscover that same feeling with his Honda RC213V. Starting in 18th left Mir with ground to recover as he lined up for the Sprint. Greeted with the coldest conditions of the weekend, Mir focused his attentions on gathering data and preparing for Sunday’s main event. He finished the day in 13th.
The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix is scheduled to start at 14:00 Local Time and run over the course of 27 laps.
Luca Marini
10th
“I am really happy about qualifying in 13th, it was a tricky situation, and we were able to make the most of it. The race today was the toughest situation we have had all weekend; my feeling wasn’t great, and I needed too many laps to warm the rear. In the middle of the race, I felt better and started to make some more progress. We need to improve our feeling with the soft rear, we have a lot of movement on the edge of the tyre at the moment. Even like this we were able to achieve a good finish at the end of the Sprint, so let’s enjoy it more tomorrow!”
Joan Mir
13th
“Today was just one of those days where it didn’t quite come together for us. Yesterday I had a lot of optimism for today because the feeling with the bike was better than we were expecting, but today with the wind and the low temperature I was not able to capture this feeling. We changed the setting a bit and probably this didn’t help us because I wasn’t able to push. When things are like this it’s better to play it safe, get some data, bring the bike and myself back and debrief with the team. Tomorrow is a new day, conditions look better and as we saw, a lot can happen, so let’s go for it like always.”
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