Since the start of this weekend in Misano, Pol Espargaró has appeared tense and somewhat messy. The reason is simple, he has just lost his grandfather.
As a result, the one who is already naturally hot-headed found himself unfocused and made a few errors during the tests, errors which conditioned his race.
In particular, his fall in FP3 prevented him from moving directly into Q2. This earned him a start from 11th after getting back into Q1, but running out of a fresh front tire in the final part of qualifying.
In the race, the KTM rider found himself behind Johann Zarco and had to be patient until the latter's tires deteriorated noticeably.
Pol I will espargaro : “I had some personal problems at home. And it's hard when you're not at home and you have to run. I'm having trouble staying focused this weekend, so too many mistakes are happening. Such an error in concentration caused the fall in FP3. That's why I couldn't go straight into Q2, so I missed a good qualifying. With the time of Q1, I could easily have started on the second row. It's still the same problem. If you have to go to Q1, you don't have enough new, new and suitable tires. I had to take a front tire that had already done nine laps in Q2, while the rear tire was new. »
“In the race, the start was not fantastic. It's always difficult when you start from the fourth row. At first I lost a lot of time in traffic. Then I got stuck behind Johann. He was very slow, but I couldn't pass him because his Ducati was very fast on the straights. Then, unfortunately, I had problems braking the machine. The rear wheel locked all the time. This is strange because we never had this problem during testing. This weekend the situation got worse day by day. I knew before we started that we would be hampered by this problem. »
“For a long time I couldn't do much against Johann, but at the end of the race he continued to slow down. When I wanted to overtake Zarco, Miguel caught me because, as a result, we were both very slow. Then Brad overtook me by surprise. So I passed Johann very late and the group in front of us had long since left. Then I went faster, and I did my best lap with three laps to go. I then passed the two KTMs and left them behind. But we are twelve seconds from the winner. This was certainly not our goal and expectation. So we have a lot to do in the test here on Tuesday. »
Lenovo San Marino and Rimini Riviera MotoGP Grand Prix standings in Misano:
Credit rankings: MotoGP.com
