Luca Marini: “For sure, Jorge and Pecco knew this…”

Luca Marini underlined why title rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin fought so intensely during the opening laps of Sunday’s Malaysian MotoGP.

The Repsol Honda rider explained that spending a lap in the hot and dirty air of another bike not only causes front tyre pressure to rise but slows engine performance and roasts the following rider.

Bagnaia and Martin swapped the lead a thrilling 11 times in just three laps before Bagnaia established superiority. The pair then maintained first and second, separated by around two-seconds, until the chequered flag.

It was the latest example of a ‘back-to-front’ MotoGP victory battle, where all the overtaking action occurs at the start, rather than building up to a blockbuster conclusion.

“If you stay a full lap behind another bike, everything is a disaster. So for sure, Jorge and Pecco knew this and they wanted to be in front,” said Marini.

“If you stay behind another bike, it's a disaster. The temperature of everything rises a lot, you feel the heat in your body, the front tyre, and the engine.

“So everything starts to be slower, the engine goes less [powerful], the front tyre stops less, the rear tyre temperature rises.”

Marini, a good friend of fellow VR46 Academy rider Bagnaia, added: “I didn't see the images yet, but I hope they fought in a good way, a clever way.

“It's nice at the end to see the two guys fighting in the championship also fight in the races.”

“I got some burns on the legs”

Marini meanwhile had a somewhat painful ride to 15th.

“We have to try to improve the way that the heat goes out from the bike, because I got some burns on the legs," he said.

“We need to improve this by the first race next year in Thailand, because if it will be hot like this, it will be difficult.

“But I'm quite satisfied about the physical side. I think it was a good race. It was just a slow race. This track was super slippery with this temperature and with our bike we struggle even more.

“At the beginning, it looks like everybody was pushing a lot, and I was missing some torque, some engine performance with this hot temperature."

The restart exacerbated Honda's heat woes.

“With the quick start procedure, it's a little bit strange, how you go on track, then you wait on the grid, the temperature goes up and everything, so for me this was not a good point for us," Marini said.

“Then we had some [chatter] vibration like always, I think that here many riders struggle with the vibration in Turn 5 and Turn 12, but for us it's very difficult to ride the bike in those corners.

“We lose like two-tenths in each corner every lap, because we cannot lean, so I think this is one of our biggest problems at the moment. And then there's always the grip.

“But during the race, also our tyre management is not so bad. It's just that we start from so far behind, and it's impossible to overtake, because of the wings, because of the temperature, and the rear grip and everything.”

Team-mate Joan Mir failed to finish due to a rear brake problem causing a fall.