Franco Morbidelli managed to make people forget his penalty from the Thailand Grand Prix by finishing just off the podium, and thus began his collaboration with the VR46 team in a positive way.
By unintentionally disturbing Francesco Bagnaia on Friday during the Practice session, Franco Morbidelli had been fined of a three-place grid penalty and thought he had compromised his weekend. Having gone from sixth to ninth, he managed to climb back to fifth place in the sprint race and did even better in the main race, finishing just off the podium.
A result that surprised him first upon arrival. "I didn't expect much from this race because I started ninth after my mistake on Friday, and qualifying wasn't brilliant", he explained. "Starting ninth, I knew I would have a lot of trouble, I tried to give everything to overtake those in front of me. At the beginning there were some great people, I had to pass Fernández, Miller and Augura and then I arrived behind Pecco [Bagnaia], in the leading group. I didn't expect it, I was already happy to be there."
“If I had used less rubber, I would have had more [up my sleeve] when I got back to Pecco. Once behind him I made a mistake at Turn 1 and lost everything I had gained by fighting hard. Even if it didn’t show, it was one small mistake too many.”
Despite this error, Morbidely opens the counters of his championship by scoring valuable points and thus begins his new adventure with the VR46 team in a very good way. "Overall we had a solid weekend: solid tests, solid races, we were able to progress step by step and the team did an incredible job", he added to MotoGP.com. "I'm really looking forward to getting to the races and being in Argentina. We're a great team and it's certain that being competitive gives us something extra, you can feel it and it's great."
Thailand Grand Prix Results :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
