Luca Marini’s interesting evaluation of the level of his Honda: “We are not bad”

Being like this is a MotoGP strategy is addictive, Luca Marini He is one of those pilots who is always interesting to listen to. The Italian pilot of Team Repsol Honda He always wants to understand what his bike does, why it does it and what its engineers have in mind to improve performance; he wants to know everything. That’s why Marini’s press conferences are always interesting. They escape the standard discourse of most of their MotoGP colleagues, as explained in prelude to the Portuguese GP this weekend. The issue, the behavior of the current Honda.

Johan Zarco says his current limitation is finding grip during acceleration. Do you have the same problems?

“I think Johann is probably the best rider in the world at using the acceleration of a motorcycle. I’ve been on the Ducati, I’ve done the full lap time on the exit of the curve. That’s really strange because normally you do the time at the entrance. Meanwhile, he was so strong in the beginning that he could be as fast as anyone just by using his control in the acceleration phase. And now, he is also doing well at Honda with this part of his riding style. But , I don’t think that’s where we lose the most.

For me, compared to the Ducati so far more time is lost in the middle of the corner. In my opinion in the first stage of acceleration, Aprilia and KTM They are the strongest because they have more power, but we can defend ourselves. In the second part of the acceleration, the Ducati was the strongest, but we weren’t too bad there either. We are probably better than Aprilia, and certainly better than Yamaha. It’s in the middle of the curve where I think we’re the slowest right now. At least in my case.”

Is it an aerodynamic or mechanical grip problem?

“I have ideas. We’re talking to all the engineers to try to find a way. It’s impossible to say what the exact problem is. We have to study everything to understand it. We’ve only had one race, so it’s too much early.”

Are you one of the heaviest MotoGP riders and certainly the tallest? Are you considering losing weight like most of your peers?

“I have done everything I can do on my part. I worked on the weight, now I’m at the lowest possible, I worked to increase my strength, to have more resistance and everything you can think of. But weighing less than now is impossible. Maybe I can cut off a piece of my leg, but I’d rather not because in normal life I want to be taller than everyone else.”