Luca Marini suffered his first crash of the 2025 MotoGP season in the Malaysian Grand Prix sprint because he was “too clean” trying to overtake, according to KTM’s Pol Espargaro.
Marini and Espargaro were battling for eighth position when they came to blows on lap 7, with Marini falling off his Honda and retiring from the race.
The incident ended the Italian’s perfect record in 2025, having been the only rider on the grid not to crash in a competitive session prior to Malaysia.
Although Marini was involved in a sizable shunt during testing for the Suzuka 8 Hours, he had managed to keep it clean through the opening 19 rounds of the MotoGP season, even as his team-mate Joan Mir was involved in 20 crashes - although not all of his own doing.
But KTM test rider Espargaro, racing as stand-in for the injured Maverick Vinales at Tech3, sympathised with Marini after their incident at Sepang, saying the Honda rider’s fair approach simply backfired.
“Just fully a race incident,” said Espargaro, who went on to finish 11th after losing several places in Marini’s botched overtake attempt.
“He is too clean. He went inside, trying not to make me lose too much time; just trying to be super clean inside. But the problem here was that he was too clean, and I didn't know he was there.
“I was taking a longer corner [line] because I had a lot of vibrations at Turn 12. So everyone was catching me there. [Marco] Bezzecchi overtook me in the same place, just rolling the brakes a little bit more and making me know he was there. You make the other guy lose a little bit more, but you make sure everything is fine.
“But [Marini] was too clean. He was too slow in that part, trying not to put me away, just to make a win-to-win, both win [situation].
“But finally it ended up in a disaster, which I'm really sorry because it's his first crash with me and this is not nice, but it was a race incident.
“He crashed, he lost his race and I lost four positions. This is what it is, these things happen in racing.”
Marini, for his part, accepted full responsibility for the clash, explaining that he had gone into the corner slowly for Espargaro to notice him.
“I saw Pol going a little bit wide and I said, 'OK, I go in', but I went in too slowly,” the Honda rider explained. “So he didn't see me and he came back in his own line.
“It was my mistake just to go in a little bit too slow. So there was no time for him to see me and I touched him and I crashed.
“So it's something that can happen, but fortunately, no big damage in the hand. We try again tomorrow.”
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