A tough morning in the wet gave the Repsol Honda team hope to put together a solid Sunday in Austria, but places eight and 16 made us want more.
During the warm-up on the wet morning, Marc Marquez and his Repsol Honda Team RC213V shone as the # 93 led the session. With a 1: 31,403 he was 0.048 seconds ahead of Miller and over a quarter of a second ahead of the rest of the field, but when the starting grid was formed for the race the weather was undecided as clouds were gathering. Marquez was declared a dry race and used the moment outside the line to fight forward and join the leading group. But an incident at Turn 3 after only a few laps brought the red flag and the race was canceled.
He gained ground again when Marquez restarted, but fell back after making contact at Turn 1. In the first laps, the eight-time world champion fell back to 14th place and rallied during the race to recover. Marquez fought his way through avoiding mistakes and finished eighth. A lack of traction and feel with the new set of tires for the restart left Marquez a second slower per lap than in practice.
Pol Espargaro got out of the blocks quickly in the warm up and felt confident in the wet at the start of the race day. With the rain not returning for the race, Espargaro did his best to maximize his potential, but Espargaro’s race was made even more difficult by a long run penalty with eight laps to go that lost him outside of the points. Espargaro crossed the finish line in 16th and was disappointed with his return from the summer break as he continued to look for grip on the rear wheel.
Takaaki Nakagami put in an impressive race and fought tooth and nail to the finish. He finished the day as the best Honda finisher in fifth.
There are only a few days left to rest before the action at the Red Bull Ring resumes next weekend for round 11 of the MotoGP World Championship in 2021. Determined to improve, the Repsol Honda team is back to work immediately analyzing the weekend’s data to do better in a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment