Aleix Espargaró was possibly one of the most frustrated riders to finish the Sunday race. The cause? A problem, he believes, with his rear tire that was ‘frozen’, as he mentioned before. He also considered the possibility of it being his mistake, but all he wants to understand is how there can be such a big difference from one day to the next.
If it was his mistake, due to changes in his riding style, Espargaró assumes he will have no problem admitting it… if that theory is proven: ‘If they prove it to me, I accept. I have no problem saying: “I rode differently”, because it shows. They have all my telemetry and, if that’s the case… I hope I can learn. I have a great relationship with Piero [Taramasso], with my Michelin technicians, and I will work to understand that’.
The pilot later recalled the big difference to the race winner: ‘It is not possible that on the same circuit, on Saturday, I was running in the mid-52s, half a second ahead of Pecco [Bagnaia], and this Sunday I am 11 seconds behind him. It’s impossible.’
For #41, the fact that he finished on the podium on Saturday makes things even worse: ‘I don’t know if it’s good or even more frustrating, it’s the Sprint. Before, we could go out on Sunday and it didn’t work, and they blamed us because with the medium tire we didn’t have a good pace. But now it’s not like that anymore, because now we have the Saturday race. And in the Saturday race I showed myself to be very competitive, especially in the second part of the race.’
His performance fell short of the long race: ‘This Sunday I couldn’t even get close to the lap times, the bike felt different. It’s not normal for Pecco to beat me by 11 seconds when the day before I passed him and gained a second in two laps. There’s something we need to understand.’
