Luca Marini really flourished during the second half of the 2018 season with, as the icing on the cake, his victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
But, although this was much less publicized than for Marc Márquez, the Italian driver suffered from the same ailment as the Spaniard, following a fall with Mattia Pasini at Le Mans in 2017. Since then, and despite several missed races in the same year, this has resulted in dislocation of the left shoulder on dislocation of the left shoulder, until the surgical operation which took place at the end of 2018.
The brother of Valentino Rossi is not yet 100% recovered but that does not prevent it from currently dominating the inter-season tests which took place in Jerez, whether last November or this year, in the process shattering the record for Andalusian circuit.
Official Jerez test November 2018 : Luca Marini 1'41.524
Jerez private test February 2019 : Sam Lowes 1'41. 578, Luca Marini 1'41.742
Official Jerez test February 2019 : Luca Marini 1'41.146
Luca marini spoke to the official website MotoGP.com on the evening of the first day of official testing 2019 in Spain: “the winter wasn't great but I worked a lot and trained very well with the whole VR46 team. I am very happy with my current position. I'm not 100% yet but I think I will be ready for the race in Qatar. The first day was pretty good. We worked well on the bike and had some interesting things to try. We have planned these 3 days very well and I hope to be able to improve more tomorrow, but at the moment I am very happy, and if it continues like this it will be perfect.”
