Luca Marini imagined a different qualification

Marini will start from 10th position

Luca Marini was certainly expecting a different Saturday on his Ducati Desmosedici in Saturday’s qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix in Motegi. After finishing free practice in fifth place, gaining direct access to Q2, the Italian rider struggled more than he should have, partly due to the adverse weather conditions, which flooded the track.

In the end, the class of ’97 finished tenth, with a time of 1’56″354. These are his words at the end of qualifying: “It was not the qualifying I was hoping for: the grip was very strange, different from what we found this morning in FP2 always in the rain. I could never really push 100%, when I tried, I always ended up long under braking without being able to do anything to avoid it. We continue to work, even in the wet, not only for tomorrow’s race, which should be dry, but also for the next GPs. These kinds of conditions are not unusual in trips outside Europe.”