Honda MotoGP rider Luca Marini says it was \u201cincredible\u201d how much damage to his bike at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix impacted him, following contact on the first lap.<\/p>\n
The factory Honda<\/a> squad endured a tough Spanish Grand Prix weekend, with neither Luca Marini<\/a> nor Joan Mir<\/a> able to lift themselves out of Q1.<\/p>\n Mir was also handed a double long lap penalty for disobeying the black-and-orange flag in practice.<\/p>\n Marini ended the 25-lap Spanish Grand Prix as the leading factory team Honda rider, albeit in a lowly 13th.<\/p>\n However, he noted that this was down to receiving bike damage in a collision at the start, which \u201cdestroyed\u201d his aerodynamics.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cIn the first corner, after the start, I had contact with two riders and my left side wings were destroyed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it was incredible how much it affected me, and now if the bike is no longer in balance, it really affects the riding.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wheelie was huge and also the stopping, the braking was zero.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really difficult to ride and to achieve a standard P13.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot be happy about this result, but for sure during the weekend we showed our potential, and I think Johann [Zarco] did another good race here.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWe are improving. Obviously, it\u2019s still not enough, but we are getting closer to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n The Honda factory team was shown up massively by LCR counterpart Johann Zarco, who used the wet conditions in qualifying to put his bike second on the grid.<\/p>\n He battled hard in the grand prix to score seventh on the RC213V.<\/p>\n One-time world champion Mir fought his way back into the ponts after his double long lap penalty, getting up to 15th at the chequered flag.<\/p>\n \u201cConsidering the double long lap penalty, the result is about as good as we could have hoped for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cOur main objective was to finish the race because the conditions, the grip and everything were very critical today and with the weather we didn\u2019t have the perfect package.<\/p>\n \u201cNot the weekend or the result we aimed for, but some good information and at least we made some good overtakes during the comeback at the end.<\/p>\n \u201cNow a day of testing with a few things to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honda MotoGP rider Luca Marini says it was \u201cincredible\u201d how much damage to his bike at the start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,245659,9399,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-634317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-honda-hrc-motogp","11":"tag-luca-marini","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}