Throughout this MotoGP season, Aleix Espargaró has proven to be competitive in qualifying and Sprint races – where he has finished in the top three on several occasions. However, the decline in performance from Aprilia is evident during the main race.
When asked at a press conference if he is confident in having a successful weekend at MotorLand Aragón, #41 replied: ‘We’ll see. I can’t wait, really. It’s a circuit where I always have fun riding the bike. And Aprilia has always performed well here; we finished on the podium here in 2022, so I can’t wait. The new asphalt looks good and I talked to some Moto2 riders who were testing here a week ago and they said the grip is very good for the new asphalt, so I can’t wait for tomorrow to see how things go‘.
Despite wanting to maintain some optimism, Espargaró also acknowledged that Aprilia has not been on the same level as Ducati in the main races: ‘I would love to be positive, but I don’t really have many arguments. We are working hard and actually the last time we competed here, our strong point was the second part of the race. But this year – we still haven’t been able to understand why, we’re working on it – in the second part of the race, we are destroying the tire more. Ducati is unbelievable in how fast they can be in the second part of the race. And we can’t. So we are fast in qualifying, we are fast in the Sprint race, but unfortunately, we lack something in the last laps of the Sunday race. So hopefully, we can understand something this weekend‘.
Potrebbe lo spagnolo ottenere un’altra vittoria nella gara Sprint ad Aragon? Il pilota ha risposto: ‘Speriamo anche per domenica! Farò del mio meglio. Nelle ultime due Sprint abbiamo lottato e siamo finiti sul podio. Speriamo di poter fare lo stesso qui. Sappiamo di poter essere veloci con la gomma morbida, ma per me e per il team è davvero importante capire cosa ci manca per la domenica. È davvero sconvolgente arrivare alla domenica con un ritmo simile ai piloti di punta e poi finire a dieci secondi alla fine della gara. Dobbiamo lavorare sodo, cercare di capire perché. Ma sì, abbiamo una buona opportunità, questa è una buona pista per l’Aprilia e per me‘.
