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Carlo Merlini was undoubtedly one of the main architects of Marc Marquez's success today at Motorland. Carlo was obviously not riding and does not have a technical role within the team. But without his very important work behind the scenes in 2023, Marc would not have landed on the Italian team and today he would not have experienced this triumphant day that will undoubtedly be part of both his and the team's history from now on.
Wemet Carlo in the Motorland paddock, just after the due celebrations for an extraordinary victory, and with him we retraced together this road that led Marc to rediscover the taste of victory.
"I would say that it is an achievement, we wanted to get to this long-awaited victory for a while now - Merlini's words - We had come close, but not very close, however, without a doubt we had wanted it for a long time. For us it was a goal to achieve with Marc after all his efforts, the bad seasons, the operations, the choice to leave Honda and come to us. I would say that this victory is the last link of a path that we have all faced together also as a team, because if a rider like Marc races for you, you do everything to make sure that he can win. A victory for him and for the whole team."
Was it Marc who made the difference today or did something also change on the bike?
"The technical package is the same as the other races, however, for sure here at Motorland Marc has a special confidence and it showed why. I don't like to use the word domination because maybe it's a strong term, however, it's certainly not often in this MotoGP that you see a rider take the pole, win the Sprint and then the GP with these gaps...it was a special track, I'd like to see him so strong in the next races, but maybe more than optimistic I would be unrealistic. It would be nice, but probably already winning here can help Marc reach a level of awareness with this bike that he needed. The other riders have been riding it for a long time, he started at the Valencia test at the end."
2024 is an anomalous season for Gresini Racing, because objectively having a rider like Marc cannot be called normal. Do you worry about returning to a more 'normal' scenario in the future?
"We live it with serenity. We knew that with Marc it was a project that could only last one season given the exceptionality of the situation. However, we tried to prolong the fun with him. Quite understandably, he made other choices in the face of other opportunities that presented themselves. Every year we start with a different challenge and also with different goals. This season we had with Marc the aspiration to win, and I think that is completely normal when you have a rider like Marc Marquez on your bike. Next year will be other kinds of goals. When we had Enea in 2022 we exceeded our goals, because we won four races and finished the world championship in third position. Last year we wanted to bring to the victory of Diggia that Alex Marquez, next year we will still have other goals with the same Alex and Fermin."
The only jarring note today was the episode with Alex and Pecco. What do you think about it?
"On Alex it is difficult to speak and judge what happened. I would say they were in that spot with different lines at the wrong time. They just touched each other, maybe mine is a biased point of view, but I think it is normal and I think it is the same for those who think differently. Absolute judgment on a racing incident like this is not there, I think there will be a lot of talk about it but I don't want to get too out of line with what then becomes bar talk."
Automatic Translation by DeepL
