The spirit of the times seems more conducive to vacations than to MotoGP news, this allows us to calmly return to certain things that went somewhat unnoticed during this Grand Prix in Assen, rich in twists and turns. Dani Pedrosa, for example, was completely overlooked after his fall at the start of the second part of the race.
However, we seemed to see him come back like a rocket in the saddle of Marc Marquez, himself sticking back to the leading group before the red flag was displayed.
Worse, the Dorna cameras showed him gesticulating and shouting against the decision of the Race Direction. However, that's not the type of guy, so it's worth taking an interest in his time in the Netherlands...
A Dutch weekend which started rather badly with a qualification in 16th position.
11th at the end of the first day, the Honda driver blamed it on a lack of stability that neither the settings nor the different tires could improve.
Return to business in FP4 with the 4th beat, Dani Pedrosa nevertheless fell without really knowing why. This is always annoying but the worst was not there; it lay in the fact that this fall took place with the new chassis and that the second did not have the same settings. Adjustments which will be made for Q1 (old chassis + new settings) but will cause the same fear in the same turn #11 which had seen its fall previously.
In the end, therefore, no passage in Q2 and a start from 16th position on the grid.
On this, faced with uncertain conditions, Dani Pedrosa is therefore betting on the soft rear tire, as evidenced by its press release: “In the first race it appeared that the strategy of using the soft tire worked well. At first, when the track was drying, I rode slowly, but I quickly increased my pace when it started to rain again while the others were handicapped. »
Indeed, author of an excellent start, Dani Pedrosa finished his first lap in 6th position 2,4 seconds behind before conceding more than 18 seconds at the end of the 10th lap, when the rain began to reappear. Its gap is then reduced to 17 seconds in the 11th lap, 14 in the 12th, 10 in the 13th and 5 in the 14th.
At the time the red flag was waved, we can even estimate that it was close to 2,5 seconds; with such an increase, we better understand the gestures of frustration from the Honda driver !
The second part of the race was even more frustrating for Dani Pedrosa since after having fitted a new soft tire at the rear, he started (moderately) this time from 6th position, but made a mistake by overtaking Bradley Smith losing the front at turn #9 on the first lap.
There, while remaining completely impartial, Dani Pedrosa's explanation seems a bit primary because he accuses, in his press release, a lack of grip of his rear tire while he fell from the front: “In the second race, I crashed on the first lap because I had a new rear tire with little grip. »
On the video images, we can see very clearly that number 26 arrives a little quickly and a little far to complete his overtaking maneuver and finds himself forced to steer more to take the correct trajectory, at which point the front tire begins to skid.
Also, as whenever possible, we will refer to the very brief private press conference that the number held in its hospitality, to understand as closely as possible the state of mind of the pilot concerned. We therefore offer you the following translation.
Dani Pedrosa: “Generally speaking, it was a pretty difficult weekend, whether in the wet or in the dry.
Today I chose a soft tire for racing in the wet. At the start of the race, when the track dried out, I tried to take care of the tires, then when the rain returned, I became the strongest. I had lost a lot of seconds, but then, later, the strategy paid off and I started to come back very quickly.
Unfortunately, Race Direction stopped the race and it's a real shame because, of course there was a lot of rain, but my strategy was the right one, and you feel like an idiot when you try to strategize for the race.
For the second race we changed to a new rear tire, and I had some grip issues and crashed immediately on the first lap.
So it’s a disappointing weekend. But there were positives regarding the strategy today, so we just have to try to look forward to improve the feeling on the bike, because this weekend was really critical in that regard. We therefore hope to be able to improve the feeling on the bike for the next race and we will try to work as hard as possible during the weekend to have a better feeling during the next race. »
In summary, a weekend that got off to a bad start but could have been saved by the right strategy adopted.
The weather, the Race Direction and a certain haste from the driver himself decided otherwise…
