Iannone: ‘I could have fought for the podium’

Pramac Racing’s Andrea Iannone felt he could have achieved a podium result at Aragon had he not been caught out by a crash early in the race.

Indeed it was a short but intense outing for Iannone at the Spanish track on Sunday afternoon.

The Italian rider made a perfect start from third on the grid, allowing him to fight with Marc Marquez for the lead throughout the first lap. Unfortunately on the second lap Iannone went a little wide and put his rear tyre on a slippery patch of synthetic grass. After the rain in the morning it was still wet and the Ducati rider ended up running onto a further larger area of grass where he was unable to stay upright.

Afterwards he said, “I started well, I battled with Marc and I felt comfortable with my bike. Then unfortunately I crashed. I'm sorry for what happened because I could have fought for the podium. I took the same line as Marc but coming out of the corner, I was a bit wider out of the curb where there is synthetic grass. I was about to crash because of a highside but I managed to get the bike under control.”

“But after that I was on the grass at a very high speed without being able to use the brakes and I crashed. It was a difficult situation. Now I want to think about the next race hoping to repeat or improve the result from qualifying and then close the weekend well.”