First Diogo Moreira vs Marc Marquez MotoGP duel: “I learnt a lot today”

10th place in a MotoGP Sprint earns a rider zero championship championship points, but the path to that result was a valuable one for Diogo Moreira at Mugello.

Moreira has impressed at times in the opening six rounds of his MotoGP career, but he hadn’t battled at the very front of a race before the Mugello Sprint.

Getting a good start in Italy, though, Moreira took advantage of a first turn mistake from Marco Bezzecchi to move up to fourth, and then he passed Marc Marquez for third at turn four. He’d go on to spend a few more laps in the front group before slipping backwards in the second half of the race.

“I was able to make a good start and today was perfect,” Diogo Moreira said after the Sprint in Mugello.

“At the end, I was there, and I said to myself ‘Let’s see where we arrive’. 

“So, at the end, it was not a real position because at the end we need to fight for top-10. 

“At the end, it’s like this, at the end I was like this with the front tyre so I was like more smooth because we need to finish races and make more hours.”

He added: “I was behind Marc [Marquez, on the start], I remember, so I remember when he braked I will brake. 

“I think Marco braked a little bit earlier than everybody, so on the last part I released the brake because I was on the inside.

“After that I was behind Marc and I said ‘I will pass him and let’s see’. 

“It was a good one because I learnt a lot today and I will say for tomorrow we’re going to make a step more smooth because it will be a long race tomorrow.”

Moreira also raced with the likes of Pedro Acosta and Fermin Aldeguer as he slid backwards in the latter half of the race. He acknowledged that the decline in the second half was because he pushed too hard in the first laps, but he indicated that he thought it was worth it to have those laps at the front.

“I was behind Marc, Pedro [Acosta], Fermin [Aldeguer], so I was there and I was able to see the lines, how they brake, how they stop the bike,” he said.

“I was pushing too much for me on the first laps, that’s why I make the drop after that because I was on the limit with the front tyre. It’s like this, I need to learn, I need to push.”

Moreira’s weekend in Italy has been his best so far in MotoGP, not only battling at the front at the start in the Sprint, but also getting straight into Q2 from Practice and achieving his best qualifying result of eighth.

“I would say we made a good test in Barcelona and here we tested something new, so at the end it’s more easy for me to ride the bike,” the LCR Honda rider said, explaining the step forward this weekend.

“[Before] I was really struggling to make the time attack. This weekend I was able to make the time attack and put all the pieces together in qualifying. 

“It’s like this: if we start more in the front, it will be more easy the race. So, we need to keep like this now.”