The Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaró hasn't been at his best since the Catalan Grand Prix, and although he was one of the favorites at Mandalika, the driver crashed in the Sprint race, while on Sunday he crossed the line finished in tenth position. The Spaniard spoke about his feelings on track and how he expects the Australian Grand Prix to go this weekend. Our collaborator Manuel Pecino gives us his statements.
By Mireia Perez / Motosan.es
Aleix Espargaró hopes for good results at the Australian Grand Prix. He shares his first impressions.
“The track has a lot of bumps. I lost a lot of time in the last corner, it's crazy. I'm a lot slower than last year. My best lap today is about half a second slower than last year, but I lose almost all of those half seconds in the last corner. I don't have an explanation, the only thing I did when I stopped was complain about this corner and explain it a little to the engineers. We compared to last year's fastest lap, which looks similar almost everywhere, but there is four tenths of a second difference, but of the four, three are lost in the last corner. The lap is therefore practically in 27.9, but I lose a lot in the last turn, 11 km/h, and everything is there. Four tenths is huge.”
The Aprilia rider left with different tires.
“Since yesterday, rumors have been circulating that the long race will probably take place tomorrow. So I didn't understand why so many drivers insisted on the soft tire at the start of the session if the long race takes place tomorrow. I was one of the few who opted for the medium and when I returned to the box, I was obviously far from the mark. I did 30.0, but I was the first of 7 riders to ride with the medium tire, the 4 Aprilia, Pecco, Quartararo and a few others, the others were all on soft tires. So, of course, it doesn't look good because I was ninth, but I was first, I did a small 30 pace on that tire and I'm happy. And then with the softs, with the first soft I was first and with the second soft I made a mistake on the timed lap. Even so, I was competitive and I’m satisfied.”
No. 41 gives his opinion on the change of program, which moves the race to Saturday.
“I think it’s a good thing. At the end of the day, we come here to race and I think it would be crazier if there was no racing tomorrow than having a whole race. And I saw that the procedure is exactly the same, even if Dorna changed the name. It's a pure race, so it's logical, since we arrive in Australia which is very far, to give all the points and have a long race on Saturday. But that doesn't change anything, it's a sprint race and instead of 13 laps it will be 27 laps and on Sunday hopefully the conditions will change and we will do the sprint. »
Aleix Espargaró shares his feelings before the race.
“Last year I was very fast and competitive, like almost every Friday this year, but during the races, in the last six laps, I suffered a lot from tire degradation. So we worked on something different today, being a little more conservative because I had a lot of problems in the last corner.”
Read the original article on Motosan.es
Miria Perez
MotoGP Australia J1: standings
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
