Luca Marini said Honda riders had little choice at Assen and had to run the soft rear tyre for the 26-lap race. He finished 11th, after a start that left him chasing from the opening laps and a late phase where he had nothing left to attack with.
Assen MotoGP tyre call
Marini said the medium-compound rear tyre gave Honda “zero grip,” leaving the bike sliding everywhere too much. That is why all four Honda riders went with the soft rear while almost the entire grid selected the medium-compound rear tyre.
“Well, for us, at the end we didn't have a lot of choice, sincerely, because with the medium [compound rear tyre], the grip for us is zero and we cannot defend ourselves with the medium, the bike is sliding everywhere too much,” he said. “So it was a little bit the only option for us.”
The choice was not a small detail. Over a 26-lap race, Honda had to plan for the tyre to fade, and Marini said the last eight laps would drop.
Luca Marini at turn five
The race got messy at the start. Marini said he was caught in an incident at turn five, where “four or five bikes” touched, and he added, “I don't know if I lost some pieces, some small wing or something.”
From there, he said he lost a lot of time behind Jack Miller before finally getting past him and trying to recover to Fabio Quartararo. “When I overtook him, I was a little bit confident on my pace to recover to Fabio [Quartararo]. But when I caught Rins, it was difficult to overtake,” he said.
Honda HRC pace at Assen
Marini said he felt he had more pace than the riders in front of him, but traffic and tyre wear stopped the move from showing up on the result sheet. “I felt that I had a little bit more pace than the guys in front of me but I was stuck there,” he said.
He also said he was struggling behind Alex Rins because the bike was not turning enough and he was losing acceleration on the exit. “I pushed a little bit too much on the rear tyre and I had the soft, so I said ‘Okay, now I manage a little bit to survive until the end’,” he said. “But at the end, I didn't have enough rear tyre to try to overtake.”
That left the Honda HRC rider in 11th, while Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez both finished in the top-six. For Honda, the main takeaway from Assen is not a single lap time but a forced tyre call that shaped the whole race, from the opening contact at turn five to the last laps when Marini could no longer make a move.
