Jackass admitted having problems with his right forearm that prevented him from properly braking and accelerating during the final laps of the Losail GP. The Australian Ducati rider will be for controls in Barcelona ahead of the Portimao GP: is an operation in sight?
He wrote that on his blog:
So, ninth again in Qatar, like last weekend and a little closer to the top, but not the same race for me this weekend. A little crazy that I was just a little more than five seconds behind the win and was back where I was, but that’s MotoGP these days and also what happens when you have been around for so long after the tests and the first race a stretch spends. But that’s not what you all want to hear, is it?
Anyway, let’s get to lap 13. I just finished the fastest lap of them all and I’m in fifth place, and then I meet (Joan) Me twice on the same lap. There were a few contacts before that, but the race just went like that, a little bit of contact here and there. Nobody seems to really care where others are on the right track, so …
Back to me; It was one of those things that we both saw what happened. We drove on after that, so I don’t have much more to say. I think I’ve been hit three times before so we seemed to be driving that way today. That’s all. As for a black flag, when the incident was investigated – well, if I got a black flag, something must have gone wrong and race management ended up calling it a racing incident.
I didn’t talk to Mir about it after the race – he looked at me on the slow down lap after the race and I looked at him, we waved a bit and I said, that’s how the race went, more or less. Otherwise we didn’t talk. So it is what it is.
I was able to push after the Mir incident, let’s call it that, and I was able to close the gap, but I started to suffer with the arm pump on my right side and for the last four laps I couldn’t even feel the brake lever. I don’t want to drive like this, I felt able to push every other aspect to the end so I have to do something about it. I also had the arm pump a bit last week but this time it was worse so we need to understand why and fix something this week. Surgery could be an option that we need to do as soon as possible if it does. I definitely don’t want another end to such a race so we’ll investigate what I can do once we get back to Europe.
In the last two laps in particular, I didn’t have much to contend with and went from seventh to ninth in the final corners, with Mir and Brad (Binder) overtaking me. So again ninth.
Last weekend wasn’t that great here either, that was pretty clear, but of “this is a must” and all of that was already mentioned before this race. It didn’t go that way today, but it’s still very early in the championship. The goal this weekend was the same as every other weekend, try your maximum to get to the top or as close as possible. That’s it. We didn’t improve here on the first weekend, but it’s a long old championship and we have a quick package.
The bike is good, there is no doubt about that, because Ducati had both poles here and both Johann (Zarco) and Jorge (Martin) were on the podium today, so fair to them. For me, it’s a positive thing that the bike is fast and that I just have to do better.
I don’t know about you, but I am very keen to have a weekend off and drive somewhere else, which is good because that is what is ahead of us. Portimao is next in a couple of Sundays and I’ll speak to you from there.