P6 on a Sad Day at Mugello 🇮🇹

Hi everyone, 

That was better than it usually is for me at Mugello, so to come out of here with some decent points and stay in fourth in the championship is a good result. As you probably heard about 100 times this weekend, Mugello isn't a place where I've had much success over the years so to finish sixth, get 10 points, stay where I was in the standings and move on to Barcelona next week, I'll take that. But it was a sad Sunday for all of us, the sort of day when the results don't seem important at all. 

We had the incident in Moto3 qualifying with Jason Dupasquier, and we were all hoping for the best for him as we left the track on Saturday night. Sadly we found out that he had passed on Sunday before the start of the Moto2 race, and we all raced with a heavy heart.  

What we've experienced today is a tragedy, there's no doubt about it. A young life has been lost and someone's son, someone's brother, has been taken away far too early. My heartfelt condolences go out to Jason's family, because for a mother and father to see that happen, it's just terrible. I know some of the riders didn't want to race and were critical afterwards of the decision to race, and while I don't want to say too much, I feel Jason was a racer at heart and I'm sure he would have wanted the race to go on. 

Saturday night, when were all hoping and praying for good news, I was at a function and the TVs kept showing replays of the accident. I actually unplugged all of them because we didn't need to see that, seeing replay after replay is just wrong and to me that's unacceptable. We all know motorcycle racing is dangerous, we're all aware of that and we try not to think about the worst that can happen, but for me that was too much. Completely unnecessary and in really poor taste.

In the race, I struggled with the wind and I felt I was forcing things a little bit at the beginning, and I needed to take a lap or two to slow down and gather myself to see what I could do. I dropped a couple of spots and probably lost too much time at the beginning and my pace picked up the longer it went, but the guys in front were just a bit too quick for me today. To be honest, my main goal was leaving here with some points, and while that sounds like a strange thing to say when you've won the previous two races, I was actually quite content with sixth because I felt on the limit a few times and had a couple of moments. I wanted to see the chequered flag at Mugello for once, so job done. 

Mugello is a place that I love, all us riders do, and we all missed being here last year. It hadn't loved me much back because my results before this year had been pretty bad, let's be honest. Both years we ran the yellow livery with Ducati I was in the front group, but managed to dump it. It's a track you love to ride at on a MotoGP bike but one where I've done some silly mistakes before, so it's not a case of me not being fast enough, let's say. So, like Le Mans … I had some unsettled business coming there and I was able to right the ship, so the aim for Mugello was the same thing. 

The big news that happened between here and France of course was me being confirmed at the team for next year, it's been a pretty phenomenal few weeks really. It feels unreal to get the contract signed and not have to worry about that for another eight months or so, and I now get to focus now on what I enjoy most. It's a real honour for me to ride for this team and wear these colours, and the support I received from the team these last few months, the faith they've shown in me, has been unreal. So I hope to repay them for that with some more wins, and then we'll see where we end up in the championship.

Barcelona next Sunday, so I'll speak to you from there. 

Cheers, Jack