The Aprilia rider experienced a difficult Grand Prix, and was unable to find solutions with his team. The situation worsened in the race with a technical problem, the fourth since the first Grand Prix of the season.
Aleix Espargaró is having a very complicated start to the season. While he manages to get the most out of the Aprilia, he is constantly the victim of technical problems, which systematically spoil all the work put in, by himself and by the team.
After a ninth place at the French Grand Prix which he wanted to take as the real starting point of his season, he arrived in Italy with the desire to fight for a new top 10. Unfortunately, he never managed to be truly competitive. First fourteenth in FP1, then sixteenth in FP2, he then finished thirteenth in FP3 and twelfth in FP4. Not qualified for Q2, things then got worse and he could not do better than twenty-first during qualifying.
Following a good start to the race, he recovered a little and overtook some drivers, but once again bad luck reared its ugly head, and the Spanish driver was forced to retire following a new problem. technical: “I knew from the start that the race would be tough, but I got off to a good start and immediately recovered a few places. Around the tenth lap I started to feel that the rear tire was not working well, I had little grip and I almost crashed several times. Lap after lap things got so bad that I was forced to return to the box. »
The frustration is all the greater as this is the fourth time that this has happened in six Grands Prix. Without that, he surely could have achieved a good result, as he did every time the bike ran with a tenth place at Texas and a ninth position at Le Mans.
Espargaró nevertheless tries to remain positive: “What happened is very strange. We will analyze the tire to understand the root of the problem. The weekend was important but, unlike all the others, we never managed to be competitive. I am more and more convinced that the potential of RS-GP is not what we have seen so far. More than forgetting this weekend, we must study the data carefully to find what did not work during these three days. »
Italian Grand Prix Mugello MotoGP J.3: Ranking
1 99 Jorge LORENZO Ducati 41'43.230
2 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati +6.370
3 46 Valentino ROSSI Yamaha +6.629
4 29 Andrea IANNONE Suzuki +7.885
5 42 Alex RINS Suzuki +7.907
6 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW Honda +9.120
7 9 Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati +10.898
8 25 Maverick VIÑALES Yamaha +11.060
9 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA Ducati +11.154
10 5 Johann ZARCO Yamaha +17.644
11 44 Pol ESPARGARO KTM +20.256
12 55 Hafizh SYAHRIN Yamaha +22.435
13 53 Tito RABAT Ducati +22.464
14 38 Bradley SMITH KTM +22.495
15 21 Franco MORBIDELLI Honda +26.644
16 93 Marc MARQUEZ Honda +39.311
17 10 Xavier SIMEON Ducati +1'01.211
18 30 Takaaki NAKAGAMI Honda 5 Laps
Unclassified
41 Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia 4 Laps
43 Jack MILLER Ducati 22 Laps
12 Thomas LUTHI Honda 22 Laps
Did not finish the first round
26 Dani PEDROSA Honda 0 Lap
17 Karel ABRAHAM Ducati 0 Lap
45 Scott REDDING Aprilia 0 Lap
