No points, but Franco Morbidelli “fast throughout the weekend” at COTA
“This mistake is due to my limited knowledge of the bike… However, it's good to know I had been fast throughout the weekend."
Franco Morbidelli was left with nothing to show for his efforts after crashing out of Sunday’s Americas MotoGP at COTA, but the Italian had been a top-ten contender for much of the weekend.
Playing catch-up after missing all of pre-season testing due to a superbike training accident in January, Morbidelli arrived in Austin with a best race finish of 16th (Portimao Sprint).
But the former Yamaha title runner-up was on the pace from practice in COTA, sailing directly through to Qualifying 2 in seventh and claiming ninth on the grid.
Morbidelli then missed out on his first point of the year by 0.257s to Raul Fernandez in the Sprint, before again settling into tenth place early in the grand prix.
However his inexperience with the GP24 caught him out shortly after setting what would be the eighth fastest lap of the race, and he crashed out at Turn 7.
“The weekend has been very good. Since the beginning of the [weekend], we improved several aspects from Portimao,” Morbidelli said.
“Unfortunately, during the race, there were conditions that I had never tried before with this bike: the temperatures were high and the grip was lower, so I had a crash.
“This mistake is due to my limited knowledge of the bike… Even though I crashed, I learnt something more about the bike.
“However, it's good to know that I had been fast throughout the whole weekend.
“So now it is important to bring this speed to Jerez and the rest of the races.
“I want to finish a long race without problems, or mistakes, and get to know the bike even better.”
