Pol Espargaro had every reason to leave the Austin track on Saturday evening with the feeling of a job well done. In difficulty since the start of the meeting and even having had to suffer the horrors of the fall, the KTM official came out of nowhere during Q.1 to enter Q.2. A performance finished with a good twelfth place aboard the RC16. Then the commissioners examined the complaints lodged by the teams…
And among them, there were not only Yamaha's grievances against Marc Márquez. There was also Marc VDS Racing who regretted that his driver Lüthi was hampered by Aleix's brother during Q.1, at turn 2. An interpretation to which the officials gave the nod. To the great dismay of the teammate Bradley Smith, fourteenth, who lost, like Márquez, three places on the grid, to find yourself fifteenth…
« This decision is bad, both for me and for our sport. What happened there is simply unfair. It's even disastrous after all the good work accomplished during Q.2. We were all so happy. I don't understand the Marc VDS approach. I cannot be compared to Márquez on Viñales. I wasn't full track like him and Lüthi could still do three laps. He didn't move away from twentieth place though! »
« It's ridiculous. I don't know what's going through the commissioners' minds right now. I lost three places unfairly and if we start like that, we won't end up seeing penalties imposed for Sunday's race. I lose a complete row on the grid ».
Espargaro Pol finished eleventh in his last Argentinian performance and he intends to score new points in Austin.
Austin MotoGP J.2: Ranking
| 1 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | 2'04.064 | 0.406 | |
| 2 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | 2'04.209 | 0.551 | |
| 3 | 5 | johann zarco | Yamaha | 2'04.210 | 0.552 | |
| 4 | 93 | Marc Márquez | Honda | 2'03.658 | ||
| 5 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | 2'04.229 | 0.571 | |
| 6 | 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | Ducati | 2'04.294 | 0.636 | |
| 7 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 2'04.456 | 0.798 | |
| 8 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 2'04.865 | 1.207 | |
| 9 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | Honda | 2'04.963 | 1.305 | |
| 10 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | 2'05.058 | 1.400 | |
| 11 | 42 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 2'05.260 | 1.602 | |
| 12 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | 2'05.457 | ||
| 13 | 53 | Tito RABAT | Ducati | 2'05.686 | ||
| 14 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | KTM | 2'05.761 | ||
| 15 | 44 | Pol Espargaró | KTM | 2'05.169 | ||
| 16 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | Yamaha | 2'05.873 | ||
| 17 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Honda | 2'05.943 | ||
| 18 | 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 2'05.966 | ||
| 19 | 41 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 2'06.035 | ||
| 20 | 12 | Thomas LUTHI | Honda | 2'06.222 | ||
| 21 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | Ducati | 2'06.296 | ||
| 22 | 45 | Scott REDDING | Aprilia | 2'06.370 | ||
| 23 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | 2'06.537 | ||
| 24 | 10 | Xavier SIMEON | Ducati | 2'06.726 | ||
