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Franco Morbidelli sits back and breathes a sigh of relief. The look is somber, and not making the podium in the Sprint in Jerez is not the reason. "I'm sore, I'm very sore. Everything hurts, we'll see how I wake up tomorrow morning," he tried to smile. The crash in this morning's free practice session was impressive, the impact against the air fences was tremendous.
"To be able to come back to the pit box after a bang like that, after crashing into the air fences, recovering to do qualifying and Sprint was unbelievable, the best thing of the day," he assures us, "To have been able to overcome that crash in the best way was something that had to be done. Thanks to my physiotherapist I've recovered enough, now we'll try to take another step forward for tomorrow."
Turn 4 is a very fast point, crashing there is never a good experience.
"The problem was that the tire was very cold and I was on the first lap. I lost the front," Franco explained, "I took a big blow in both hands, I also lost a glove, I don't know what happened. Then a big blow in the neck. The air fences did a great job, but I guarantee that you can feel it."
The VR46 team rider was not the only one to have a hard landing on the asphalt in Jerez. "We often talk about the speeds we reach with these MotoGP bikes, they are incredibly high. Jerez has become a narrow track with narrow run-off areas. They have already improved in some places, but they are also working on others, like turns 4 and 7."
Before taking his leave, Morbidelli commented on the fine given to Marquez for leaving the pit lane when it was still closed.
"If I remember correctly, the same thing happened to me in Moto2, I think at Sachsenring, and I received a penalty in terms of starting positions. Often the penalties go that way," was his opinion.
The day did not go in the right direction on the other side of the box either, with Di Giannantonio finishing the Sprint in 6th place, last of the Ducatis. For him, life started to get complicated yesterday when they went in the wrong direction with a few too many experiments.
"The truth is that we are a day behind. My time today would have been great ... if I had done it yesterday," Fabio admits, "We started working well on the bike from this morning and tonight we will have to figure out how to make two steps forward in one go for tomorrow. I'm not too happy, but in the end we salvaged it a little bit. The team and I take responsibility for the tests we did yesterday, they are penalizing us for the weekend."
So we need to look ahead.
"The real points come on Sunday, and I expect to struggle less than today. In the long race we reward consistency, we can make up some positions and we will have to work well to get into the top 5," he declared his goal.
To achieve this, however, he needs to sort out a few things on his Desmosedici.
"I had some vibration problems with the rear, the last 3 or 4 laps I was going really slow. This should not be a track where you have these problems, so we have to figure out what happened. The top 3 suffered less than me, so that means they worked better."
