Pol Espargaró reached the end of the MotoGP Indian GP race, but in an exhausting physical round he had to slow down to make it. The GasGas Tech3 rider finished 13th.
The Spanish rider described a state of extreme physical exhaustion after the race: ‘I feel so tired. I believe like my colleagues. But coming from where I come from, with these injuries, I didn’t feel very well. I reached my all-time maximum heart rate; I didn’t expect to do it and it was 198. I was shocked, I was surprised – I can’t reach that training with the bike or whatever. So, I believe it was due to the lack of oxygen and this track makes everything very tough. And also the heat‘.
Questioned about whether the Indian GP was the biggest physical challenge he has had since returning from injuries, Espargaró replied: ‘Every track has a bit of that, but this one is really extreme. I felt weak. During the race, I felt that I lost a lot of time due to being in poor physical condition. Maybe in other places not, but here I needed to break my lap time a lot: I was in the high 1m46s/1m46.8s, while I believe I could have been in the 1m46.4s/1m46.5s – something like that. It was the first time I really felt that I needed to push myself, otherwise I wouldn’t finish the race. But it’s part of improvement; I need to keep working and surely in the next races or in the pre-season I will have more time to get back to my normal state‘.
