Misery in Misano after Early Spill 😫

Hi everyone, 

That's a really frustrating way to end a weekend when I was really fast the whole way through. I was top three in every session, running pretty comfortably in the top three in the first four laps of the race, and next thing you know I'm down on the floor at Turn 15. Classic front-end Misano crash, and unfortunately a repeat of a weekend that I've had here before. I've qualified second here four times now, and I'm still waiting to go home with something really good to show for it. 

Before I keep going – it's special day for Fabio (Quartararo) here today so huge respect and congratulations to him for becoming world champion. Fully deserved, he's been the class of the field all year, he's been the most consistent of all of us and I'm happy for him. He's a popular winner and you only have to see how the other riders reacted to him after the race to see what a popular and good guy Fabio is. So, congrats to him and it's massive for France to have a first world champion. We wanted to delay him a bit later, but he's a good guy so I'm happy for him. 

So back to my race, and what happened? All weekend, when it was wet, when it was dry, when it was half-and-half … speed wasn't the problem. We went with the hard front/medium rear tyres, both me and Pecco (Bagnaia), and we were the only ones to do that. I went down on lap four, and Pecco did the same at the same corner four laps from the end when he was in the lead. It's a tough one to take from first and second on the grid. 

Pecco and I both came to the decision to run the hard front independently of each other, I made my decision late in the morning that I was going that way, and we went left-field and initially it looked like a bit of a masterstroke. But in the end it wasn't really warm enough for that tyre once the clouds came in, it was probably borderline. Our plan was always to go with the hard tyre, we have quite a bit of front locking on the brakes with the medium, so that was what we were trying to avoid. 

We tried to shoot for the fences and we had great pace at the beginning, but it just wasn't to be. It's just one of those days you just want to forget, really. 

I dropped behind (Johann) Zarco for fourth in the championship because of the crash but (Joan) Mir crashed out too, so I'm the same amount behind Mir as I was coming here for third in the championship – 26 points – and I now just have one race less to try to narrow that gap. Rather silly, because I cost myself quite some points and I could have made some points up on Mir today – I saw he'd crashed out and I had an opportunity, but a lap later I was on the floor myself. 

It's important now for the team to get both bikes in the top three of the championship, we have a good chance of that if I pull my finger out. It'd be nice to walk away with a medal this year, a top three, and it'd be a fantastic way to end a year that's had its ups and downs. Putting it together week in and week out has been the difficult thing, we've had the speed at pretty much every Grand Prix this year, so it's about making the most of that. 

One thing's for sure, if I didn't know my way around Misano before the last two years, I definitely do now. Two races here last year, and this year two races and a test with only Texas in between. Seems like we've been riding around this place forever. We're back at Portimao – again – for the next one in a couple of weeks, so I'll talk to you from there. 

Cheers, Jack