On Tuesday afternoon, Honda released a brief statement announcing that the rider from Cervera (Lleida) had decided that he was not going to travel to Portimão, after having suffered an accident the previous Saturday, while training by doing motocross.
Nothing was specified in the note beyond the fact that Marc Márquez was diagnosed with a concussion, and that after undergoing a final check-up that same Tuesday, he was still not feeling quite well, a circumstance that pushed him to stay home – his position at the penultimate stop on the calendar it will be occupied by Stefan Bradl –.
For Aleix Espargaró, the fact that the #93 will not be on the track this Friday, almost a week after the accident, is the indication that allows him to conclude that the crash had to be a big one.
“No one has information about that accident, because the statement says nothing, but we all know Marc, and if he is not here because of a shock caused by a fall, it is that the accident had to be very strong,” agreed the runner of Aprilia.
“If he crashed on Saturday and didn’t have time to get on the bike on Friday, that’s because the crash was important,” stressed the rider from Granollers (Barcelona), who intends to start this Sunday for the podium, which would be the second for Aprilia in MotoGP and the second of the season, after the one he won at Silverstone.
In Misano, a little less than two weeks ago, the oldest of the Espargaró brothers finished seventh, less than two tenths ahead of Maverick Viñales, his teammate at the Noale factory.
For #41, the explanation for that minimal difference that separated them is more related to their lack of punch than to the step forward taken by Viñales.
“From the first day I knew that Maverick was coming to the team, I knew that he would push me, but Misano’s reference is not good because I was very slow, very slow. I was not at the level I would have wanted,” the #41 deepened, annoyed, as It is logical, because the injury suffered by Lorenzo Savadori in Misano will prevent him from testing this weekend a hybrid between the bike of this course and the one projected for next year.
“It is a task that Lorenzo is not here, because the idea was for him to test a motorcycle that is a mixture of this year’s prototype and the 2022 prototype. Now we will only be able to test it in the winter test in Jerez,” Espargaró concluded.
