Aleix Espargaró has shown impressive speed in the MotoGP pre-season, consistently near the top of the timesheets both in Sepang and in Losail. In the Qatar tests, the Aprilia rider posted the third-best time, trailing the leader Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) by 0.308s.
The Spaniard stressed his enthusiasm after the tests: ‘I’m excited, I’m very happy. Testing is testing, is always the same story. But if you are fast like I was during the pre-season you have to be excited. I’m very excited, I’m ready to fight. I think it’s going to be a nice season. I’m feeling that I’m riding in the best level of my life and this RS-GP 2024 is the best bike I ever had. So we’ll see what happens in the races, but I’m ready’.
That said, Espargaró is aware of the high level of the grid and addmited that Ducati is still out of the reach: ‘The level is very high. The lap times we did in Malaysia and here in Qatar are insane, crazy – unbelievable lap times. Everybody is very, very fast. It looks like Ducati has improved, we improved – the RS-GP 2024 improved a lot, but eventhough this is not enough to beat the Ducatis. KTM also improved a little bit, especially on the race Brad [Binder] is going to be there. It looks like the Japanese brands improved a little bit, but not enough because the Italian ones are improving a lot more. The man to beat is Pecco, for sure. I think it’s the strongest pre-season for him since he is in MotoGP’.