It was looking like a promising weekend…
Moto3. In the free practices Tatsuki almost did the track record until a few drops of rain on the asphalt, not reported with the flag, made him crash.
On Saturday he managed the qualifying badly, closing just 12th. On Sunday morning even worse, my phone started ringing at 06:30 a.m.: TATSUKI tested positive. The following three hours were hell in between panic and disbelief as he already had covid just a few months ago. We managed to get him tested again with two tampons thanks to the efficiency of dorna, who gave us the response at 09:15: it was a false positive. Finally breathing again, with so much rush we got ready to race in the fastest way even if we skipped the warm-up, but we should get used to it as from next year there won’t be the warm up anymore.
Tatsuki made a great race, at two laps to go he made his best lap-time, 1’41”7, and closed 5th after two riders had been penalized because they exceeded the track limit. I thought between me and myself what would have thought Massimo Matteoni, an ex technical director of Marco, a little gruff and direct but with a big heart, if he had Tatsuki next to him: “If you were able to do your best lap at two laps to go with finished tires, what did you do the entire race, you slept?” which in our dialect would have sound even better.
Tatsuki is coming out from a difficult moment so we forgive him this time, he did a good job anyway.
Fellon is surprising me more and more, he began to trust the team and to understand we are here to work for him and not against him. He started 14th, with a ride through still to be done but he made a mistake entering the first turn and he finished in the last positions. There is still something to be revised, and a lot to work on but he has a big margin of improvement.
MotoE. Casadei suffered a lot in the practices as he doesn’t know the tires’ reactions well and he doesn’t trust them so much, but in the race he was able to close 6th with the same lap-times of the first riders. He needs to start in the first positions because there are just a very few laps and the level is very high. In the first time everyone was snobbing the MotoE, in the first year there were just riders “with a lot of experience” let’s say it this way…. By the way, they later understood that this is not just a game, it is not like the minibikes, and today there are strong and competitive riders.
Six laps are too much when you’re fighting for the victory, I’ll begin a new campaign for the 2022 championship: STOP to the six laps, welcome to the three laps. Just kidding!
On Sunday, the race direction penalized four riders (Fellon included) with a ride through, and that’s fair, but then there were riders that created a very dangerous accident, and they didn’t do anything. I went to the race direction to note that the one who caused the accident had already taken the checked flag, and they didn’t notice that before, but they didn’t accept any speech. What a pity!
At the same time, I think that the rule for the last chicane in Assen was smart and dutiful: whoever goes out has to pay with a one second penalty. And guess what, when there are those rules and penalties no one goes in the green.
-PaoloSic58-