Luca Marini denies that he was sent out to tow off Fabio Quartararo in Thailand MotoGP practice in a bid to unsettle the Yamaha rider for Ducati stablemate Francesco Bagnaia.
Quartararo was seen gesticulating at the Mooney VR46 pilot in the early minutes of Free Practice 2 at Buriram, although he later chose to follow Marini himself.
VR46 and the Monster Energy Yamaha team happen to be located next to each other in pit lane, leading to a theory that #10 was given orders originating from further up in the Ducati hierarchy.
That idea was given further currency when another Ducati rider, Gresini Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, came to be following Quartararo at the end of the session.
Marini, however, said it was “nothing in particular” except that he wanted to follow the man who he considered the benchmark in MotoGP’s last visit to Buriram, in 2019.
“I tried to understand his lines, how he rides here because in 2019 – in my opinion – he was the best,” explained the Italian, who was in Moto2 back then.
“His riding style was really perfect during the race and he just missed a little bit of tyre management compared to Marc [Marquez, the race winner] in my opinion.
“In the last five laps Marc had something more, but it was just this.
“It’s the first time for me here in MotoGP so I was following him because he’s also close to me in the garage and it’s easier to start with him, but it was nothing in particular.”
The Italian pointed out that towing is not uncommon, and also that he did it during a period of the session when everyone was on old tyres anyway.
“It’s better for him that I follow him with used tyres in FP2 than in qualifying and make him nervous,” added Marini.
“Marquez did this every time and nobody bothers Marquez for this.
“For me, things just go on and he also followed me.
“It’s just something that happens in every race [weekend] in every practice.”
Di Giannantonio claimed he ended up behind Quartararo because he had not long before crashed.
“I’m trying to go alone in this final part of the season because I think now I have to focus on myself and also prepare myself for next year,” said the rookie.
“At the end of the session, I crashed and I rejoined with the same bike that was just repaired so I just needed a tow.
“I just asked Fabio, ‘Please can we go together?’” he laughed.
“It was just to see if he can help me a little bit with the slipstream.
“But the feeling was a little bit worse than this morning so we couldn’t improve.”
The latter was unable to go faster in FP2 than he had done in Free Practice, but put that down to traffic and untimely yellow flags.
The Frenchman was not buying into the theory that Ducati had given orders to Marini and Di Giannantonio, but did note that the Bologna marque has options given there are eight Desmosedicis on the grid.
“They have eight, so they can play pretty well,” remarked Quartararo.
“Then, unfortunately, I don’t have any help. Today I had Franco [Morbidelli, team-mate] in front, but he was gone.
“So, actually I will do it by myself because I think a team strategy will be difficult to do.”
Two more practice sessions and both qualifying sessions take place later today.
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