Like most of his colleagues, Aleix Espargaró is going through a phase of deep reflection in confinement which leaves him no other choice but to come face to face with himself. Out of the intoxicating whirlwind of the succession of races in an exacerbated competition which makes the world tour a simple guided tour, the Aprilia official is trapped in a time which has suddenly stopped. He realizes what he has lost and what must be preserved. He is therefore no longer thinking about retirement and has already accepted a reduction in his salary…
Aleix Espargaró understood that difficult times were only beginning and that we will now have to approach events with a new perspective. THE Coronavirus, by stopping life on the planet, sometimes, unfortunately, in the literal sense, made us aware that we enjoyed a certain opulence tinged with carelessness. Waking up will only be harder.
Already, the pilot Aprilia realized how lucky he was to be a professional pilot. So much so that this forced immobility annihilated in him any desire to retreat: “ These days you rethink a lot of things. For example, I had recently thought about retiring, leaving motorcycles to devote myself to other things. But when you've been at home for so many days and months without running, you miss a lot and it makes you rethink a lot of things. The adrenaline rush that a MotoGP race gives you is unlike anything », explained the pilot Aprilia during DAZN’s “Cambia el mapa” podcast.
« I have a lot of doubts, I don't know what will happen. There are drivers who might retire, Cal, Dovi, Valentino… They said they want to retire, so there will be more places available, or maybe after this break they won't think more to that. » A change of heart that he experiences live…
Then, Pol's brother who rides for KTM realizes what must be preserved, and therefore the measures to be taken to succeed in this rescue: “ my economic conditions changed, I knew it very quickly and I was the first to understand it. It doesn't make much sense to put pressure on a factory when everyone is now suffering. And what's more, I'm a worker who gets paid to race motorcycles. If I don't race motorcycles, obviously I can't charge the same as before, just like it happens to the vast majority of the world's population. In fact, the salary is secondary, in Italy they suffer much more than we imagine, the factories have a lot of difficulty. »
A European motorcycle industry which is indeed under the yoke of this pandemic, but Aleix Espargaró invites the Japanese not to rejoice too much: “ It's a very difficult year in which all factories are struggling, not just the European ones. I am sure that it will also unfortunately be the turn of the Japanese factories, so we'll see how everything progresses. We have to wait and see if we race this year. » A question that torments the paddock. We know that some of its major players have as a doubt on the subject…
