Morbidelli: Tyre life a never-ending story

Franco Morbidelli is hopeful of clinging onto the leading group in Sunday’s MotoGP race, but admits there remains “a big question mark” regarding tyre life for all of the Yamaha riders.

The Italian qualified an impressive sixth in Saturday afternoon’s Q2 session – his best performance since stepping up to MotoGP in 2018 – and believes free practice has indicated the Argentine Grand Prix could mirror the season opener in Qatar.

“In qualifying I was feeling quite confident,” he began. “I was alone both laps. The second time attack I made a few mistakes. Anyway I was able to make a decent lap. This is good. It means we have good potential.

“The important thing is the race and we fixed that, the starting position, which is good. It’ll be important to get a good start, get in the group and stay there until the end.

“Tyre life is a big question mark and it’s a never-ending story. I don't know. It will be important to make a good choice tomorrow, especially for us, because the rear tyre is very important for us Yamaha riders.

“It’s important for everybody, but maybe for us a bit more. We will see.”

For the first half of the season opener in Qatar, Morbidelli shadowed the leading group of eighth, but was unable to make any forward progress, before tyre wear caused him to drop back.

Has he made improvements in this regard since round one? “No, in Qatar I was starting eighth, here I am sixth,” he said. “In Qatar I was fast throughout all the weekend. Here I’ve been fast all weekend except FP4. Everything is going like Qatar.

“Maybe I did a better qualifying. This is true. Maybe we worked a bit better during the sessions and we managed to find quite a good setting. But in Qatar the speed was there; it was the tyre choice [that let me down].”

And the possibility of riding in the rain? “We will have to wake up and see. I hope it’s not going to rain because I don’t want to just jump on this bike in the rain. I hope it won’t. If it does we have to be ready and go.”