"This wasn’t the result we were aiming for, starting this morning in Q1 when I took a gamble that didn’t pay off — that’s on me. I went for the soft front tire, a bit of an ‘old Jack Miller classic’ move to try and nail a qualifying lap. But honestly, the new soft front isn’t what it used to be.
I had the medium on for FP3, but there were quite a few crashes on the left-hand side early on, and I also had some front-end locks, so I thought pushing for one flying lap on the soft would be the safer bet. Already at Turn 2 on my first time attack, though, I realized it was the wrong decision — the tire kept getting softer and softer. In the race, I made a small mistake at the final corner of the first lap, basically doing almost a long lap and losing three positions. Then I got a tear-off stuck on the back straight, and after that, the bike felt a bit heavy and sluggish, making every move harder. Later, I was behind Marini, and on lap 5 he ran deep at Turn 6. I tried to keep it tight to get ahead of him on the exit, but as soon as I leaned in a couple more degrees, the bike went down. We’ll regroup now, try to make some changes to get more feeling with the front, and see what tomorrow brings.”
"This wasn’t the result we were aiming for, starting this morning in Q1 when I took a gamble that didn’t pay off — that’s on me. I went for the soft front tire, a bit of an ‘old Jack Miller classic’ move to try and nail a qualifying lap. But honestly, the new soft front isn’t what it used to be. I had the medium on for FP3, but there were quite a few crashes on the left-hand side early on, and I also had some front-end locks, so I thought pushing for one flying lap on the soft would be the safer bet. Already at Turn 2 on my first time attack, though, I realized it was the wrong decision — the tire kept getting softer and softer. In the race, I made a small mistake at the final corner of the first lap, basically doing almost a long lap and losing three positions. Then I got a tear-off stuck on the back straight, and after that, the bike felt a bit heavy and sluggish, making every move harder. Later, I was behind Marini, and on lap 5 he ran deep at Turn 6. I tried to keep it tight to get ahead of him on the exit, but as soon as I leaned in a couple more degrees, the bike went down. We’ll regroup now, try to make some changes to get more feeling with the front, and see what tomorrow brings.”