RiderTua.com – Quite a positive weekend for Franco Morbidelli. After having a good qualifying in Jerez, the Pramac Ducati rider was also able to secure good results in the sprint race thanks to the many crashes experienced by his opponents.
The Brazilian-Italian racer finished 8th on the grid in qualifying (wet track) with his Ducati GP24. “We managed to jump from Q1 to Q2. Unfortunately, I was a bit too conservative when choosing the soft rear tire. The medium tire would have been better. But I wanted to keep it simple and not take any risks. Overall not a bad session,” said Franky.
Franco Morbidelli: The track conditions are very bad
Then Franco Morbidelli finished the sprint race brilliantly. 14 of his opponents crashed, so he crossed the finish line in 5th place. As a result of the time penalty given to Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), Franky moved up to 4th place. “At the start of the race, the tires got hot because of being in the group. But when I was able to recover, my pace was not bad. This is actually very strong for the experience and confidence on the bike. We are very happy, this 4th place is a good reward for the work us,” said Valentino Rossi‘s student.
How is Morbidelli’s condition after his serious crash with the Ducati Panigale at Portimao last season? “Physically I still have time to recover because I couldn’t do 1 month of training in the spring before the season started. There are still things missing, but we are working in the right direction at home to be as prepared as possible for the race,” said WM#19 .
Lots of crashes in Saturday’s sprint at Jerez. How does Morbidelli assess track conditions? He replied that the track conditions were very bad. On a track like this it is difficult to find wet spots and these spots last for a very long time. Over time, several places started to appear.
The 2020 MotoGP runner-up emphasized, “This needs to be fixed because it is very dangerous to race sprints or qualify in conditions like this. We have to use slick tires, but this wet spot just appeared.”
