Pol Espargaro can leave Mugello with his head as high as he had leaving the last meeting at Le Mans behind him. His boss Stefan pierer wants single-digit results and his team leader predicted in Italy a place between 2 and 11? The Spaniard fulfilled his mission as he finished ninth. In the championship, he is in the top 10, just four points behind Jack Miller in sixth place…
Pol Espargaro, the official Red Bull KTM rider, was delighted with the fourth Top 10 recorded this year, after six races contested. But he's also full of ideas on how to improve his RC16. He finished second in FP3 on Saturday, then ranked eleventh in qualifying. His New Zealand team leader, Paul Trevathan, therefore expected a score of 2 to 11 on Sunday. “ We achieved this goal, yes. He was right. Paul makes good predictions », beamed the optimist Pol Espargaro at the arrival. “ We knew our race pace would be good enough for places between 7 and 10. We knew that would be our position in the race. But maybe in the race I suffered a little more than expected because of these high temperatures ».
« We didn't expect this heat. With the medium tires we were in a really bad grip situation. This made our work a little more laborious. In FP3 on Saturday, when we were second, it was cooler, so we were very fast on the soft tires. We have more power on a single lap, but once the tire drops and we start spinning we have a lot of problems. We were still 14 seconds faster than last year. And we followed Crutchlow for the Honda factory and Pirro for the Ducati factory. Across the two, we only lost about 2,5 seconds. In the end we passed Quartararo. We must be happy ».
Mugello was one of the most difficult tracks for KTM in 2018. Changes of direction made the RC16 riders suffer. To what extent is this problem solved? I will espargaro answers : " we still have this concern. We have problems in the last part of the corner. And we suffer from changes in direction. This doesn't give me much pleasure because it wastes a lot of energy at the start of the race, and by the end you're really exhausted. This is why Mugello was perhaps the most grueling race of the year... In this area we need to improve to be efficient in such hot temperatures and on tracks as difficult as Mugello. But we must not forget the progress we have made in recent weeks. We can be proud of it ».
The CEO of KTM, Stefan pierer, said in Jerez that the Austrian MotoGP machine was still 4-5 kg too heavy. “ Yes, it is possible, if we could lighten this weight, it would make our situation easier. But we also need to improve other aspects. For example, we have a lot of ideas regarding aerodynamics. Some of these ideas will be seen very soon. Some later. Development must continue. But I am convinced that we will see clear differences compared to today at the end of the season with our aero package. It will be very useful ».
Italian Grand Prix Mugello MotoGP J3: classification
