Luca Marini: “We need a camera filming further back…”

Three of the last four MotoGP races, including the most recent Japanese Grand Prix, have seen the race winner also credited with leading every lap.

That’s not made for great TV viewing.

But several riders have highlighted that some of the hardest battles in MotoGP occur away from the cameras, for positions in the mid-pack and beyond.

“In the back, there are always great battles,” said Luca Marini, after finishing 14th at Motegi.

“Every time I say that we also need another camera in the back [filming] the battles from the P7 until the end, because there are some crazy moves! Very interesting!”

Some of those hard moves came on the very opening lap of the Japanese race.

“There was a big mess in the first lap. I lost a lot of time, a lot of positions,” said the Repsol Honda rider, who had lined-up 20th on the grid. “So my race was a little bit complicated, but then I was able to make some overtakes.

“We knew at the beginning of this weekend that this track could be one of our worst tracks because there is a very low grip here.

“So I think with the P13 [in the Sprint], P14 [in the GP], we achieved the best result that we could.”

The Italian’s only regret was that he hadn’t followed LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami’s gamble on the soft rear tyre, which took the Japanese to 13th place.

“I thought that the medium is the correct choice, but seeing the performance of Taka with the soft… I was in the grid the thinking about the soft because for me with our bike it works much better with the soft. It was just a matter of managing it for all the race.

“At the end, Taka was still really fast, in my opinion the fastest Honda rider on track, so it could have been a better option the soft rear after seeing his data, but this is all good information.”

“The behaviour in braking, how to stop the bike was much more difficult [with the medium] and especially edge grip when you touch the gas, it was easy to slide and never accelerate,” Marini added.

“But then I saw the Michelin guy with the proposal [tyre choice] and everybody was on the medium, I didn't want to make that we are the [only] guy with the soft rear.

“So I said OK, let's go with the same plan as the others and try to have the best result possible to have more information for the future.

“But it's positive that Taka made the race with the soft because like this, we can compare the data and get more information for the future and next year.”

Phillip Island, venue for this weekend’s Australian MotoGP, was the scene of a famous tyre gamble by title contender Jorge Martin one year ago.

The Pramac rider led most of the race on the soft rear before being swamped by his medium-shod rivals on the final lap.