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Despite a bike suffering from a power deficit, Alexis Masbou spat on his hands to honor his audience during his last appearance in Moto3 in front of the public at the French Grand Prix.

Result, a fifteenth place in qualifying, only six tenths from pole, his best qualification of the year. Not really up to the level of the driver but, in the current times among the unofficial Mahindra teams, it already represented a good effort...

Unfortunately, the first lap saw the hopes of the Peugeot MC Saxoprint driver disappear, following the fall of Darrin Binder which forced him to go off the track.

From then on, as he explains to us, the Albi driver found himself powerless to climb back to an honorable place, concluding this Grand Prix at home, which is very often refused to our compatriots, in an anonymous 23rd position: “ In the race, the problem was that I couldn't exploit my passing speed, since I was behind the others. And each time, when braking, I am a little too far away to overtake. I'm always a little stuck behind the drivers, and I can't find that compromise between braking extremely late and having enough passing speed. As we have a power deficit, I would have to be able to brake much later than the others to switch to braking, and I don't necessarily manage to have more opportunities in this phase, but rather in the middle of the turn, so each time I find myself a little stuck, and I can't make the difference as I would like. When I'm behind a good rider, I can ride fast and I don't have any problems, on the other hand, when I'm in a slightly slower group and it's a bit more stop and go, I'm a bit more in difficulty and that also happened a bit, when I found myself in the group behind, after the fall. I had the speed to do better, but in the end I couldn't pass and got stuck behind. »

At Mugello, with the long straight, you will suffer a lot…

" I don't know. Right now, you never know what's going to happen until you get to the weekend. I thought it was going to be quite interesting here and in the end I found myself in quite a bit of difficulty, compared to Jerez, in terms of the engine. We do not really know. Normally, we should have a cooler engine at Mugello; maybe this will help me. In any case, I hope so because it's obviously frustrating to start in a good position, hope for points, and finish in this place. »

Is this a big disappointment?

“Yes, it’s a big disappointment. Last Moto3 race at the French Grand Prix, I didn't want to finish outside of my goals. Unfortunately, racing is like that. If I had been in the top 10, maybe I wouldn't have crashed at the start of the race. There, in the middle of the pack, there is a greater chance of being there and unfortunately it fell on me this time. »

Comments collected by Thomas Morsellino

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