Zarco and Syahrin Give Their Best in San Marino GP

“It has been a difficult race today, it was hot. I had a good feeling from the work we did in the Warm Up. At the beginning of the race in the first corners of the first lap I was able to control the bike well. To stay with the others was difficult, especially behind Valentino, he was braking quite strong and I could not overtake him. My weak point was always that I was losing in acceleration. From the beginning of the race, I’ve lost a few meters in the exit of the corners and then I did a mistake in the entry to corner 10 and I think this made me lose a lot of time and a lot of energy. Then I tried to find the pace and relax myself but I couldn’t do more, so it was not easy. The feeling to handle and control the bike was ok but we are so weak in the exit, so for the next races I’m going to try to find a solution even in riding style to have less issues. I still don’t know. I gave all the energy I had, but still finished far from the top guys, which is difficult to accept, but it’s the way of our races at the moment. I need to accept this and work on myself to keep growing.”

“In the end, we finished the race in 19th, which is not the position we aim for but it was a lot better than Qualifying. I still need to improve a lot and we also need to work harder for the next race. We decide to choose a rear soft tyre because I don’t have a lot of experience and we had a good pace with it, so we opted for that different tyre on the rear. In the first 10 laps I felt really good, not very far from the others but then I had a huge drop on the left side and therefore I was losing speed on the exit of the corners and had a lot of spinning. The feeling of the bike was very good, but this issue made it difficult for me to stop the bike and in addition the hot conditions today. Anyway, I gained more experience this weekend, some things to forget and some to take away. I try to learn from my mistakes and try to work hard for the next round.”

“That was a tough Grand Prix, but we knew it was going to be difficult. For sure, I think the fact that we haven’t been testing here didn’t help us a lot. Clearly the best moment and the highlight of the weekend for us was when Johann managed to go directly to Q2 on a still slightly damp track on Saturday morning in FP3. The rest of the weekend was obviously damage limitation. We did the best we could, we took a soft front and a soft rear and thought it could be a help in the beginning of the race to stay with the front guys and it worked until the Johann was trying to pass too hard and lost four positions, he went down from 9th to 13th. Lap time wise he was ok, he was lapping the same like the guys in front but couldn’t catch them anymore. A top 10 result is ok, thanks to Lorenzo, who helped us to arrive there. But it was a tough thing; Maverick Viñales fifth, Valentino Rossi seventh, Johann tenths shows that it’s not easy. There will be tracks which are better for us, for Yamaha, but right now it’s a bit of a struggle. The good point is, that we stay in contact for the best independent rider together with Cal Crutchlow and Danilo Petrucci. Let’s wait, I think Aragon will be a bit easier. On the other side, Hafizh Syahrin had a much better day today than the whole weekend with Warm Up and race and I think it’s always better to finish on a more positive note than the one he was going through on Friday. He did a good race, passed quite a few riders, did some decent lap times and hopefully Aragon will be also easier for him. Anyway, this is his rookie season, he is in a learning process and just lost two points to Franco Morbidelli now, but we’re still there and hopefully there will be tracks where we can be closer and in front again.”