Morbidelli: “I expected worse, didn’t want to know” Bagnaia’s condition…
While most of the grid changed to a new front tyre option for the restart of Sunday’s Catalan MotoGP, Morbidelli was stuck with used rubber.
Some riders like Marco Bezzecchi and Brad Binder had to change to the unfavoured soft and hard fronts due to having no new mediums, but for Morbidelli, the factory Yamaha rider didn’t even have that option available to him.
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Morbidelli came across the line 14th, one place behind Marc Marquez, but admitted he expected an even worse result after seeing other riders change their tyres.
"I expected even worse," said Morbidelli. "On the second restart I saw that everybody had new tyres and we didn’t.
"I knew that it was going to be it. Then I had much less potential than everybody else.
"I tried to make the maximum and I arrived close to Marc, but finally it was just a race where I couldn’t push all race long.
"I just needed to bring the bike to the finish line unfortunately."
Despite being far down in the pack to begin the Grand Prix, Morbidelli managed to avoid the turn one carnage and come through unsacthered.
Enea Bastianini’s mistake at turn one saw five riders, all of which were Ducati riders, crash before fellow VR46 academy rider Francesco Bagnaia was hit by another bike.
The two incidents were separate, with Bagnaia crashing on his own on the exit of turn two, before the oncoming KTM of Brad Binder ran over his legs.
A shocking incident, Morbidelli said he didn’t want to know the conditions of his friend as it could have played on his mind heading into the second restart.
"I didn’t know what happened and I didn’t even want to know when going for the restart," added Morbidelli.
"I just saw that he was okay and going to the medical centre."