Yesterday at the end of the day you could count the absence of two riders in the press room for the customary media scrum. It was the Aprilia pair: Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin. The reasons are obvious and well known. Both were in the hospital with a few bones to check after the nasty incident at the first corner of the short race generated by a mistake by the now former World Champion, who even fractured his right collarbone. The latter, cannibalizing the braking, ended up, blamelessly, hitting his teammate's twin RS-GP.
Today, however, having finished the Grand Prix Marco Bezzecchi came before the journalists as usual. His GP ended at the foot of the podium, with a very decent fourth place and a sharp and decisive overtake on Morbidelli, but Bez was not the usual Bez. Too much of a difference with the rider who gave Marc Marquez a good run for his money in Misano. "I'm not happy," he told the English-speaking press in his Romagnolo lilt. His neck, back, and hands hurt, but especially his right leg, he went on to tell us, is pretty banged up, although nothing is broken. The aches and pains of the body, he feels, also bring down his spirit a bit, and his tone of voice is at least a couple of notches lower than usual.
In any case, in a week's time we are racing at Mandalika, and taking a cue from his finish, the #72 assured us that he will do everything he can to recover and leave all his exhaustion in Japan.
"Physically I'm so-so," the #72 confesses, "Yesterday I took a big hit, my right knee hurts a lot, where I already have a ruptured cruciate ligament from two years ago, and yesterday with the impact my knee turned. Then it swelled up and I have a huge hematoma on my thigh, hurt my hands, my glute and my back, because some flips. I'm not in good shape, in short."
Yesterday we heard and saw that Martin immediately took it upon himself to apologize. Then you also saw each other.
"With Jorge there was never any problem. In my opinion it was a mistake, he was starting way behind and to get to catch me means that he exaggerated a bit, but as bad as it was it still went well. We in any case didn't have any kind of problem, I went right away to see how he was because I realized I hadn't broken anything, but I saw him holding his shoulder. I went to ask him how he was doing without being too intrusive, and I'm glad he was concerned about me too. I wish him to come back as soon as possible."
Incident aside, how do you rate this race and the weekend in general?
"Come on, it was a good race. The weekend got a little complicated on Saturday, I couldn't make a good time or even replicate what I did on Friday. Unfortunately, in the second time attack we had a problem that we still have to fully understand what it was. Starting ninth on a track like that makes it complicated, then clearly the hit was not needed because I was not at my best physically. I did the best I could, I'm not happy but more than that unfortunately I couldn't do."
This morning during the Moto2 and Moto3 races some drizzle fell. What condition did you find the track in?
"The track was fine, it looked pretty good to me. Generally in races the conditions are always slightly worse than in other sessions, and that was the case today as well. The droplets that were there didn't affect it too much, though. This is a tough track where the tires suffer a lot both in front and behind, but we would have suffered either way, whether the track was good or not so good."
In addition to the rain in the morning, we also saw a bit of smoke come from Bagnaia's Ducati out of the exhaust for a good portion of the race.
"I saw some smoke. There was one lap I was under the second bridge, so after turn 11 and still there was the cloud of smoke. As I wasn't in front, I thought it was coming from Mir's bike. I honestly don't know what it was from, but if I made it in time to see it, which I was far away, it means that Pecco's bike was smoking a lot. Anyway, I think even he won't tell you what it was," joked the Aprilia rider.
In a week's time you are racing in Indonesia. Will you be at 100 percent?
"I will do my best to recover. I think for the neck and back a couple of days of rest will be enough, while for the leg I don't know, I will have to see with my trainer."