Luca Marini: “Someone was behind me - I said, 'why? Who?'”

New Repsol Honda rider Luca Marini joked that he was surprised to discover someone was behind him during the Qatar MotoGP race.

After qualifying ahead of only Franco Morbidelli, then finishing 21st and last in the Sprint, Marini was briefly 19th on the opening lap of the grand prix.

But the trio behind soon overtook, leaving Marini surprised to find out that another rider was still behind him.

“I saw on my pit board someone was behind me, and I said, 'why? Who?'” Marini smiled.

The rider in question was Red Bull KTM’s Jack Miller, who crashed out of the top ten at the start of lap 2, before catching back up to Marini by lap 10 of 21.

The Italian then tried to exploit the situation by studying the Australian’s RC16.

“I let him pass and tried to follow him, also to not take any risk going below with the tyre pressure [after the delayed start],” Marini said.

“I tried to understand something behind him, because the KTM now is really strong and has improved a lot from last year.

“I think that something positive comes in my mind, and it's clear for me what we need to do, but we need a little bit of time to try more fixes.”

Marini spent seven laps behind Miller before re-passing the Australian and, although Miller lamented that he was losing the front and rear whenever he tried to push, Marini still spotted a clear grip difference over the Honda.

“I think that Jack was not in his best shape but sure, they have a lot of rear grip, especially in the last part of the entry, and they can make the bike turn in an easier way in the middle of the corner using this rear grip, and also touch the gas and keep turning,” Marini said.

“This is something that we are struggling the most, especially myself. So this is the grip in the rear, but especially starting from the [corner] entry. The entry phase lets the bike turn better than my bike.”

The laps spent in Miller’s slipstream also allowed Marini to understand how dirty air changed the Honda's aerodynamics.

“I could make the corners with [clear] air, [dirty] air, so I could understand very well the wings effect and the downforce that we have. I think we need to re-balance a little bit the bike, this for sure will help our performance.”

Johann Zarco was the top Honda rider in twelfth place, with Marini’s team-mate Joan Mir in 13th.

The pair were 18 seconds behind Ducati race winner Francesco Bagnaia but a huge 24 seconds clear of Marini, who had a ‘little’ technical issue in the race.

“So for this, my pace was slow. But even without that issue maybe I couldn't fight for a good position as my team-mate did,” Marini confessed.