Fear in Barcelona
Sunday of the Catalonia Grand Prix turned into a rather heavy day for MotoGP, with two serious accidents that affected the race. After the frightening crash of Alex Marquez, who hit Pedro Acosta’s bike full on in the straight after a failure on the Spaniard’s KTM, the GP was suspended a second time shortly after the restart: the worst hit, in the contact with Marini and the involvement of Bagnaia, was the Frenchman Johann Zarco. The French rider’s left leg, in fact, got trapped between the tail and the rear wheel of the Ducati. Both Marquez and Zarco, on their respective Instagram profiles, wanted to reassure fans about their physical conditions in the hours following the intervention of the emergency services.
The penalty at the end of the race
For Honda it was therefore a shocking day because of what happened to Zarco, but at the same time frustrating from a sporting point of view: Joan Mir, in fact, took 2nd place, climbing the podium alongside winner Fabio Di Giannantonio and Fermin Aldeguer. Only later, however, the Race Direction penalized the Spaniard for irregular tire pressure, thus finishing 13th: “A really difficult day – he commented – first of all I want to wish the best to Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco, their condition is the most important thing. I had a great start and I knew I had the chance to fight for something important. The goal was to stay close to Acosta and then see what would happen in the last laps, it was really exciting in the end! I have to thank my team for the work done during the weekend and especially today, it is on days like this that the team can make the difference. The result on track shows the potential of me and the bike and I hope we can show this speed on more and more circuits. The penalty is a shame, but it does not take away anything from the speed we showed and the point where we crossed the finish line.”
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From fear for Zarco to an exciting race finish
Shocking day for Luca Marini, directly involved in the accident that took Zarco out of the race. At the restart, Tavullia’s #10 managed to get 6th place: “I want to send my best wishes to Zarco and Alex, especially Zarco, it was really hard to watch his crash – he said – I know the medical staff did a great job to help them both as quickly as possible, I have been in similar situations and it is not something I wish on anyone. As for our race, it was the result of hard work and I have to sincerely thank Pipi (Marini’s chief mechanic, ed) and my whole team, because we really did a great job to turn the weekend around. On the third start I had to use the spare bike and the clutch was brand new, so we didn’t start off well. Despite this, I managed to make up ground and catch the riders ahead. Congratulations to Joan, he had a fantastic race and I hope it gives an extra boost to the whole team!”
