TO say that the San Marino Grand Prix, which revs to life today, is Franco Morbidelli’s home race would be an understatement.
The Petronas Yamaha Sepang Racing Team (SRT) rider can literally see the Misano track from his house and, with strong support for the Italian a sure thing, expect him to go all out to repay their faith in him.
And the signs are positive for SRT’s Fabio Quartararo and Morbidelli, who ended a two-day test at Misano a fortnight ago in first and third spots respectively.
“Misano is a very special track for me because it’s my home race. I can see the track from my house. I trained a lot there and I really like riding on the track,” said Morbidelli.
“A lot of my friends and family attend the race and it’s always good to have them around to help me relax ... and pumped up at the right moment.
“We’re well-placed for a strong result after the work we did on the bike’s set-up (during the two-day test), but we will have to see what the track’s condition is this weekend.
“We can still improve in the fast corners, like turns three and 11, so our set-up isn’t quite 100 per cent race-ready yet.
“We’ll have lots of time in practice to know what we want to improve on. So, we’re hoping for a productive Friday to get us to where we want to be.”
Quartararo, who crashed out early at the British GP last month, was almost half a second faster than Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci during the Misano test.
Petrucci was second fastest, just over two-tenths of a second ahead of Morbidelli on the timesheets.
Morbidelli and Quartararo’s strong pace bodes well for their qualifying chances.
Their race pace, however, is another matter.