Catalunya Track Report

[totalmotorcycle]

@Catalunya #Track Report



What was the strategy for the Barcelona race?

It has been a very difficult weekend for everybody here in Barcelona, following the tragic accident that cost the life of Luis Salom. We want to send our condolences to his family and friends one more time.

For the race we felt ready to fight for the podium with both riders after a good qualifying session yesterday. Marc started the race with hard tires at front and rear, so his strategy was to try to save the front to attack at the end. He did a perfect job, attacking almost until the finish but unfortunately this was not enough as Vale was very strong today.

Dani made a different tire choice, with hard front and medium rear. In the early laps he wanted to preserve the rear tire as much as possible, so he didn’t push too much, but a few laps from the finish he had to reduce his pace because the rear tire was almost finished.

Any positive or negative points after the race?

The positive is clearly the team’s double podium and the fact that Marc again leads the championship. Honestly, there were no negative points, because both our riders did a very good job.

The view from the pit wall during the race?

We thought that Marc would have been able to attack all the way to the end, and in fact he very nearly did! We were anyway very pleased to see that he tried but when he realized that Vale had a better pace, he sensibly settled for second place, showing maturity and bringing home 20 important points for the championship. It was good to see Dani fighting in the first part of the race with Maverick [Vinales], even if honestly some of Maverick’s attacks were a little bit too aggressive, which was not good to keep the pace and stay with the leaders.

Any inside stories apart from your official comments?

We were very happy to have all our trial riders here with us on race day. Toni Bou, Takahisa Fujinami and Jaime Busto came to enjoy the MotoGP experience and it is always good to share our passion for all motorcycle racing!

Marquez shook hands with Valentino in the parc ferme after the race, which was a very nice moment. What kind of impression did it have on you?

We were very happy to see Vale and Marc shake hands. They are two big champions, and this is a sport that we love, so it is important to see that they respect each other.