RiderTua.com – Shortly after the start, Luca Marini had contact with Joan Mir which resulted in the right winglet on the side panel of his Ducati Desmosedici GP22 coming off. The Mooney VR46 racer was astounded by the impact it had. As a result, the 24-year-old rider only finished in 17th position. “It’s unbelievable how it affects the race. The impact is extraordinary, truly extraordinary. Assen is probably also one of the worst circuits where we could run into such a problem. We raced at a very high speed for the whole lap,” said Maro.
“Without the winglets, we lose about 20 km/h in turn 6, 7 and especially 12 in the middle of the corner. Impossible to make more speed. Because the bike doesn’t want to turn corners and in fast corners it’s difficult to stay on the track, especially at Turn 12 which is very fast,” he explained. Besides Luca Marini, Miguel Oliveira also collided with Joan Mir on the grid start.
Luca Marini: The Loss of Winglets Had a Huge Impact
Marini explains, “The bike didn’t do what I wanted it to. I wanted to stop the bike well, but it was impossible to stop it at the braking point. The bike became very unstable in fast corners, so I had to reduce the speed significantly. Unfortunately, it can’t be skipped.”
“I don’t know why, but Joan made a dangerous maneuver and crossed my line. It might be accidental, it might also be because of the wheelie. It was a very dangerous moment. If I had crashed at that moment, with so many riders behind me, it could have been very dangerous for me. So I just try to stay on top of my bike. That’s all, problems like that are just bad luck,” added Marini with a sigh.
Was Valentino Rossi’s younger brother surprised by how striking the impact of the missing winglets was? “Yes. I heard a lot of incidents like that in the past. I remember for example Pecco losing winglets in Qatar in his first year. At that time he had to give up because it was impossible to race and brake like that. I was in the same situation. At first I didn’t know it was a winglet. After 10 laps I said to myself, ‘Something is making my life very difficult’. Then I saw that the winglets were missing. It’s really amazing how influential it is,” Marini replied.
“The level of aerodynamics on the bike now is incredible. And it works really well because the bike is very stable in the fast corners and in the fast sections. That really helped us at Assen,” said the Ducati rider.
“Without the winglets, I lost about 20 km/h at Turns 6, 7 and especially 12 in the middle of Turns. Impossible to make more speed. Because the bike doesn’t want to turn corners and in fast corners it’s difficult to stay on the track, especially at Turn 12 which is very fast. It felt like I couldn’t put any weight up front every time I got into the green zone, so I had to hit the corner with a lot less gas than I did during the warm-up. On exiting Turns 5, 8 and the last corner the wheelie slope is also much stronger and hence the acceleration is worse. It was surprising,” said Marini.
