The Aprilia rider had a very good weekend, including an excellent Saturday, and could hope to beat his best result of the year. However, a poor tire choice completely changed the situation in the race.
Despite his four blank results and the number of technical problems encountered on his bike which caused them, Aleix Espargaró arrived with the desire to forget his fall from Barcelona. A little apprehensive about his feelings on the bike, he discovered, delighted, that the feeling had returned on the Assen track.
His first day went smoothly, with the Spanish driver finishing seventeenth in FP1 and thirteenth in FP2, around a second behind the leader. The second went even better, since he was able, once again, to show his talent by taking seventh place in FP3, which allowed him to automatically progress to Q2. Despite a poor FP4, he finished seventh in qualifying.
Starting, therefore, from the start of the third row on Sunday, Espargaró was unfortunately unable to defend his chances as he would have liked due to a poor choice of rear tire. In difficulty throughout the race, he could not do better than thirteenth.
On arrival, he was inevitably disappointed: " I'm not happy. Unfortunately, I made a bad choice for the rear tire. My Aprilia worked really well throughout the weekend with the soft, even if we were at the limit with the wear. It is precisely for this reason, and after the tire problems at Mugello and my crash in Barcelona, that I opted for the hard tire thinking that it would be a safer choice. I actually didn't have any grip from the start, so all I could do was just finish the race. It's a shame because we had worked really well in all the sessions and the negative came at the decisive moment, where points should be scored. »
Dutch Grand Prix Assen MotoGP J.3: Ranking
1 93 Marc MARQUEZ Honda 41'13.863
2 42 Alex RINS Suzuki +2.269
3 25 Maverick VIÑALES Yamaha +2.308
4 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati +2.422
5 46 Valentino ROSSI Yamaha +2.963
6 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW Honda +3.876
7 99 Jorge LORENZO Ducati +4.462
8 5 Johann ZARCO Yamaha +7.001
9 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA Ducati +7.541
10 43 Jack MILLER Ducati +13.056
11 29 Andrea IANNONE Suzuki +14.255
12 44 Pol ESPARGARO KTM +15.876
13 41 Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia +15.986
14 45 Scott REDDING Aprilia +16.019
15 26 Dani PEDROSA Honda +16.043
16 53 Tito RABAT Ducati +16.416
17 38 Bradley SMITH KTM +29.073
18 55 Hafizh SYAHRIN Yamaha +33.824
19 30 Takaaki NAKAGAMI Honda +34.037
20 12 Thomas LUTHI Honda +47.853
Not Classified
9 Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati 9 Laps
10 Xavier SIMEON Ducati 9 Laps
17 Karel ABRAHAM Ducati 15 Laps
