A week after a difficult weekend at Mugello, the troops KTM found themselves on the Montmélo route with the same RC16 in the making. For the seasoned teams with proven equipment, this Catalan Grand Prix was hell, so imagine what this seventh meeting of the season was like for the Austrian arrivals... Not only were the performances difficult to find but also , the oranges lost one of their soldiers, wounded in combat, in the person of Bradley Smith.
The Briton damaged his finger so badly that he was even forced to miss the tests following the Grand Prix. Unfortunate, because there is work to be done on this bike. Pol Espargaro explain : " we encountered more problems than feared. But after Mugello it was clear that we were going to suffer in Barcelona ».
Suddenly, the brother of a Aleix mortified due to the breakdown of its engine Aprilia did not have the opportunity to celebrate its 26th birthday with dignity on the Saturday of the meeting. Finished with the twentieth time. The race was not going to hold anything better, with an eighteenth position under the checkered flag: “ in long turns we have problems. The bumpy bitumen linked to the poor grip of the track seriously handicapped us."
« The combination of all these factors absolutely blew us up. Fortunately, we will do three days of testing and we will be able to try new parts to improve our sensations with the machine. But in these conditions, we are downright the worst ».
Pol Espargaro finished 48.993 seconds behind the winner Dovizioso. During the first day of testing, the KTMs still played in pairs with the reinforcement of Rock. Pol Espargaro finished thirteenth and the Finn eighteenth, out of the eighteen drivers on the track.
#CatalanGP: MotoGP J.1 Test Ranking
| 1 | 93 | Marc Marquez | Honda RC213V | 1:44.071 | ||
| 2 | 25 | Maverick Vinales | Yamaha M1 | 1:44.437 | 0.366 | 0.366 |
| 3 | 94 | Jonas Folger | Yamaha M1 | 1:44.972 | 0.901 | 0.535 |
| 4 | 26 | Dani Pedrosa | Honda RC213V | 1:45.003 | 0.932 | 0.031 |
| 5 | 41 | Alex Espargaro | Aprilia RS-GP | 1:45.046 | 0.975 | 0.043 |
| 6 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda RC213V | 1:45.296 | 1.225 | 0.250 |
| 7 | 5 | Johann zarco | Yamaha M1 | 1:45.452 | 1.381 | 0.156 |
| 8 | 45 | Scott Redding | Ducati GP16 | 1:45.565 | 1.494 | 0.113 |
| 9 | 53 | Tito Rabat | Honda RC213V | 1:45.582 | 1.511 | 0.017 |
| 10 | 46 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha M1 | 1:45.635 | 1.564 | 0.053 |
| 11 | 9 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati GP17 | 1:45.863 | 1.792 | 0.228 |
| 12 | 43 | Jack Miller | Honda RC213V | 1:45.897 | 1.826 | 0.034 |
| 13 | 44 | Espargaro Pol | KTM RC16 | 1:46.107 | 2.036 | 0.210 |
| 14 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki GSX-RR | 1:46.130 | 2.059 | 0.023 |
| 15 | 22 | Sam Lowes | Aprilia RS-GP | 1:46.389 | 2.318 | 0.259 |
| 16 | 36 | Mika Kallio | KTM RC16 | 1:46.405 | 2.334 | 0.016 |
| 17 | 42 | alex rins | Suzuki GSX-RR | 1:46.490 | 2.419 | 0.085 |
| 18 | 50 | Sylvain Guintoli | Suzuki GSX-RR | 1:47.055 | 2.984 | 0.565 |
