Aleix Espargaró was one of the fastest of the MotoGP tests in Losail. This Tuesday, in the last day of the pre-season, he was third 0.308s behind the leader Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati)… despite not having the best feelings with the soft tyre.
The Spaniard from Aprilia said he is in a better level than expected, but improvements on the engine are needed: ‘I’m happy, very, very happy. We are in a… I would say a higher level than I expected before the two tests – completely different tracks and we’ve been fast. The Aprilia is better everywhere, we just need to improve the bike in the engine side – we need more torque, more power, especially for the soft tyre because looks like we are on the limit, we cannot extract more from the soft tyre, so for Saturdays we are going to struggle. But in terms of race pace with the medium tyre it has been amazing like today, so I’m very happy’.
Despite the struggles to be fast in one lap, Espargaró still managed to be third on the timesheets. However, he downplayed that result: ‘Yeah, the RS-GP 2024 is good, I’m very happy. But if you check my race simulation before I crashed in lap 7 or 8, it has been an amazing pace. I did a couple of laps in 1m51s, which is crazy with the medium tyre. So it means when you put the soft, you would expect to be on top, to be at least a couple of tenths faster. But I couldn’t because it’s like a flat spot everywhere. I need more power. The bike is amazing everywhere, we just need to increase a little bit the power performance’.