It is a very bitter Pol Espargaró who leaves the Brno route. In this Grand Prix of the Czech Republic, he will have drunk the chalice to the dregs. His bad streak began in qualifying on Saturday when his second time was taken away due to yellow flag. From then on, the KTM rider was inhabited by a dull anger which was good in the warm-up, which he led. But in the race, young rookie Brad Binder and teammate showed more to his advantage. He made mistakes to wash away the insult, to the point of clashing with Johann Zarco with whom war was declared. Meanwhile, Binder made KTM history, a consecration which, according to him, should be his by right…
Pol Espargaro should be taken with a grain of salt when leaving the site of Brno, and he is happy that there is a new Grand Prix next weekend to relax him. It will be at the Red Bull Ring, the grounds of KTM, who now has a victory in MotoGP. But it is not his doing, even though he gave a lot to this RC16 project. A disappointment that he does not have the strength to hide… “ It hurts a lot because we've never seen it this close » he said of the victory.
« And, in the end, if you have it that close and you make a mistake, you can blame yourself because it's your mistake and it hurts but that's how it is. But to see it so close after four years, with a KTM practically made by me, that this moment comes and someone snatches it away from you is very difficult to digest ».
« Obviously I'm happy for Brad and the factory but, obviously, I would have liked it to be for me or at least two KTMs to be on the podium », Adds the native of Granollers.
“I have no intention of speaking with Zarco”
The Catalan was asked if he was able to speak with his former teammate after the incident. “ I have no intention of speaking with Zarco, especially now. Ultimately, all actions must be viewed in two ways: it is avoidable or it is wrong. We all make mistakes or you just don't avoid contact like you could have avoided today and you go to the ground. He didn't avoid contact and that made me fall and that's how the Race Direction saw it and for that they penalized him. What makes me angry is being able to avoid a fall, he did not make a minimum of effort to avoid the collision, which for its part was very easy to avoid ».
After the incident, the Frenchman was penalized with a “long lap”, with few laps remaining. But that's not enough to relieve Pol Espargaro. On the contrary. “ There are circuits where the 'long penalty' is good because you lose time but here it was a joke. He took the "long penalty", and I don't think he did it correctly because the rules say the bike and the rider must be inside the white lines and he had his whole body outside the line. Obviously, in the way he did it, he lost nothing. A driver was removed from the game and he made the podium. Ultimately, the game went well ».
« It is clear that at the end of the day, for one driver to take out another is not normal. When a rider throws another, it's the fault of the one who throws him, I wouldn't have fallen if Zarco hadn't hit me. I fell because he leaned against my body to make the curve. So I think that's why the sanction is clear and I don't think anyone can dispute it, the race direction saw it the same way » insists the pilot KTM.
Despite all this incident, KTM showed his big step forward. “ It's easy to understand why I'm so frustrated and angry. Because I don't know if today was an isolated case where the bike was working perfectly, the tires were perfect and the temperature was ideal for us and it was a unique opportunity that they took from us. Or that the bike is in great condition and we can do it now every weekend ". Answer in a week, on a track where Ducati has never lost…
MotoGP Brno J3: standings
