Franco Morbidelli nearly made a return to the podium at the German MotoGP. The Prima Pramac rider was in second place behind teammate Jorge Martín and even believed in a victory. However, excessive tyre consumption caused him to lose momentum, finishing only sixth.
When asked if this was his best race of the year so far, the Italian replied affirmatively but admitted he took the wrong approach: ‘Yes, definetely. We were able to aim for the victory at one point. I was fast enough to recover on Jorge quite easily and I thought that it could be the moment. But instead I used a bit too much the tyres and I needed to pull back and bring bike to the end and defend myself to the end. But this wrong race approach is part of the experience that I’m missing on the bike. We’ll clear that’.
In Morbidelli’s view, experience with the bike has been key to improved performance, but in Sachsenring, the difference between the Sprint race and Sunday’s race was also influenced by the tyres: ‘I was feeling better with the medium rear. I was feeling better with the medium tyre, it had more stability and more tyre endurance. And still with the new tyres or with high grip situations I’m lacking, like on the time attacks or Sprints’.
On the feeling of being back in the fight for top positions, the #21 commented: ‘It feels great, it feels amazing, being there in such an attack position, because I’ve been there last year just once, but anyway when I’ve been there in the past two years, it was always in defensive mode, while in this race was in attack mode, and is much nicer, it’s much more my style’.
Morbidelli is in a good phase of the season and has felt for some time that he could make it to the podium: ‘It’s three races that I think I could reach the podium, since Barcelona. I’m not getting there yet, but I keep working and I keep believing. Let’s see’.