Fabio Di Giannantonio was one of the great leaders of the Indonesian GP but he did not see the finish. The VR46 driver retained his eighth place at the start before entering into a fight with the two drivers ahead of him, Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Márquez. After several position exchanges, he had just gained the advantage over Márquez when he fell.
“It’s a shame to have lost a lot of time with Marc at the start because I was much faster”estimated Di Giannantonio, while Márquez for his part judged the Italian “a little excited” in their confrontation. “We fought too much in my opinion but once I overtook him for good, I was fast, I had good times”said Di Giannantonio, confused as to the causes of his fall.
“We don’t really understand yet what happened but I just lost the front at turn 10. It’s sure it was a lot of braking but it felt like [lors du warm-up] with a worn tire. There was nothing crazy but unfortunately I fell. I think we have to be optimistic because this weekend we were fast from start to finish. We put on a good show in the race so we have to be satisfied.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio was the only driver on the grid to opt for the soft rear tire. Many of his rivals did not think it was possible to preserve this rubber for the duration of the main race. We will therefore never know what Di Giannantonio was capable of on this soft tire, his race having only lasted a little over eight laps, while his sprint, finished in ninth position, gave him a certain confidence.
“We have a lot of information from the engineers and [samedi]I was the only one so that it was possible to use the tender at the rear because there was not too much [de dégradation lors du sprint]. We said, ‘OK, we can do it if I’m maybe a little calmer on the throttle and the pace is a little less intense than [samedi]I think I can finish the race’. But I also had to gain a lot of places at the start because that’s where you benefit the most from the soft tire. We did it.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio
Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“[Avant le départ de la course principale]we have the data up to approximately 15 laps because the race [samedi] made 13 laps, so more or less 15 laps”said Di Giannantonio. “Afterwards, as much as we could save that tire for those 15 laps, the rest was just survival but honestly, I think it was possible because I was really, really calm on the throttle.”
“Before the race, I spent about an hour and a half looking at the data to understand [les virages] where I had to preserve the temperature of the rear tire so I think we were in a very good position to have a very good race.”
