Diogo Moreira’s Misano MotoGP ended early, just as LCR Honda had found a more promising direction with its setup. The Brazilian crashed at Turn 4 on lap three, before he could make use of the improvement discovered in Sunday morning’s Warm Up through the circuit’s third sector.

A step forward in sector three

That part of the lap had been Moreira’s main weakness at Misano. It contains sixth-gear Turn 11, two right-handers that require braking and the first-gear Turn 14 hairpin. LCR Honda worked on both the setup and the electronics in the Warm Up, aiming to give the bike greater stability through the faster corners.

Moreira said the changes made Turn 11 easier to negotiate and helped him carry speed through it. The other sectors stayed at the level reached the previous day, but the gain in sector three gave the rider a clearer sense of progress on the final morning of the weekend.

Encouraging opening, sudden finish

The first lap reinforced that impression. Moreira reported feeling very good, passing other riders and believing that a strong race was possible. The crash came in a place where, by his account, he was not pushing. He was preparing the second sector for a potential pass on Fabio Quartararo, which made the incident at Turn 4 especially difficult for him to explain.

Moreira described the fall as a small crash and said he was okay. It followed his 11th-place finish in the Sprint; he had qualified 15th and, like the ill Joan Mir, had missed Q2 at Misano. The rookie accepted that mistakes can happen during a first MotoGP season, while taking the sector-three improvement as the weekend’s useful positive. He also pointed to another race the following week and said he expected the situation to be better next year.