Pol Espargaró indulged in confidences by the fire during this winter break conducive to taking stock of last season. An interview carried out by our partner Motosan.es et already relayed in our columns, during which a passage did not go unnoticed. Certainly, the younger brother of an Aleix official Aprilia rider is rave about Dani Pedrosa's life-saving development work. But he also remembers the lightning passage of Johann Zarco from which he thus draws the conclusion...
The course of Johann zarco in KTM is an integral part of the events that marked the 2019 MotoGP campaign. Because it is rare to see a rider who has an official two-year contract, with all its advantages, throw in the towel after just a few months by accepting an admission of helplessness in the face of his bike. It will be recalled that the Frenchman's decision was not premeditated. He took his employer for granted while he himself had no plan B. The circumstances and the will of each party then allowed them to get out of trouble after high-risk visual navigation...
Pol Espargaro remembers this episode well in the RC16 project. And here is what he learned from it: “ what is clear is that Johann came with the stripes to be number one and to take us a step forward. A status legitimized by what he had done with Yamaha, but it didn't end like that. »
« I always said I was looking forward to having it in the box because it could be useful for calibrating myself as a rider and also for the bike, with someone fast at the controls. But on motorcycles, two plus two doesn't always equal four » comments Pol who ends: “ I always said that there was no God in MotoGP, and sometimes a rider doesn't adapt to a motorcycle so things go wrong. This doesn't necessarily mean the bike is bad, although it is true that ours is, at a minimum, complex, and requires a lot of work and sacrifice. »
Not so long ago, the reputation of being the toughest bike in Grand Prix was the Ducati. It is precisely this that Johann zarco will discover in 2020, in GP19 version, within the Avintia team, but with technical staff from Borgo Panigale, since the tricolor has a Ducati contract…
