#QatarGP ends early for Nakagami

The Grand Prix of Qatar ended in early for Takaaki Nakagami as he slid out in the early stages of the 2021 curtain-raiser in Doha. The LCR Honda IDEMITSU rider lost his front end heading into turn nine just seven laps into Sunday’s race, ensuring he finished the opening round of the new World Championship season empty-handed.

Starting from the fourth row, Taka headed into the race in upbeat mood having posted the fifth fastest time in the warm-up session. But the Japanese star lost a handful of places at the start after being crowded at the first corner and his misfortune was compounded on lap seven as he uncharacteristically crashed out.

Takaaki Nakagami:

“Of course I’m not happy because I didn’t finish the race. There’s not much to say, I’m really sorry to my team as they worked really hard and yesterday we made a big step and had confidence for today’s race. But in the end, I’m not sure as I didn’t make a mistake and the data didn’t show a strange feeling. Anyway the crash was at turn nine and we need to understand what happened at that moment, fortunately I’m ok and we have a few days off to prepare for the next round here in Qatar. Once again, I want to say sorry to all my team, but we have to be strong and think about the next round.”