Luca Marini: “This is exactly what we needed” | Joan Mir: “The save of my life!”

Luca Marini has one more chance to take his first Repsol Honda points before the MotoGP summer break in this afternoon’s German Grand Prix.

A repeat of his 15th place in the Saturday Sprint would suffice in that respect, the Italian taking top RCV honours - for the first time - in a 15-lap race that saw no retirements.

“It has been our best race so far, I really enjoyed the whole Sprint,” said Marini, who finished 15.430s from race winner Jorge Martin (Ducati) and set the fastest Honda race lap, 0.796 from the best by Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia).

“I spent most of it behind Fabio and Diggia and I felt like I could stay there. It was really motivating to have this speed and it confirms the way we need to be working.

“This is exactly what we needed after the hard weekend in Assen.

“I am adapting much more to the bike, and we are seeing the progress forward. Of course there’s still more to do, but it’s important to enjoy these moments and do what we can tomorrow.”

LCR team-mates Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami were the next best Honda riders, in 17th and 18th, followed by wild-card Stefan Bradl (19th) and finally Marini’s team-mate Joan Mir.

Mir has struggled to find a set-up throughput the weekend and finished one place lower than he had started, in 21st.

The only positive was that: “Today, I made the save of my life at Turn One! It was incredible and I hope they can find the images,” Mir said.

“Our feeling was not really good after trying to experiment a little bit after a tough Friday but it wasn’t the way to go. We keep learning, this is really the most important thing and what we have to do in our current situation.

“Tonight we will check the data of the other guys and change our setup for Sunday.”