MotoGP - Pol Espargaró: "Honda knows that it can improve a lot"

After setting goals that are as exaggerated as they are unattainable in his debut with Honda this season, Pol Espargaró is confirming and assuming as the races go by the difficulty of the mission that his success in the official HRC team will only come with work, patience and accumulating a experience that, after only five races, still does not allow him to compete as he would like.

This Thursday, in the run-up to the Italian Grand Prix , the sixth stop of the course, the Catalan meditated on what is costing him the most in his new stage.

“I would highlight not so much what it is costing me, but rather that it is a defect that we have and share with other factories: the lack of rear grip, especially entering the curves, something that does not allow us to be fast in the center of the turn and exit accelerating inclined, but it is something that most manufacturers suffer”, he explained.

“Having a perfect lap is what is costing me the most so far. I’m fast at times and that’s good because it means that our time will come, but it’s hard for me to close a round lap. It’s normal, we’ve only had five races and we were hardly able to do preseason. It’s something that was in the plans. I am competitive and I would like to do with the Honda what I did with the KTM , but it is a matter of time. Everything will come and it will do so in its time. No matter how hard I push for it to happen, there will be crashes like the ones at Le Mans (in Q2), which is what annoys me the most, knowing that I can and not being able to prove it, is what frustrates me the most”, Pol confessed. .

Before the summer break, the MotoGP calendar now features four races in five weeks.

“I really wanted the races to come in a row. What last year I didn’t feel like doing at all, now I need to be riding constantly, not going home or running away, working and learning every day on the bike. The more races in a row we have, the better. If we do a good one we can chain a positive streak. We have to take points in the championship because the plan is still to finish among the first, and there are still many races to do so”.

Despite the fact that this desire may sound like a goal, the man from Granollers does not want to put pressure on himself again as he did at the start of the course.

“I don’t set goals for myself or set goals for myself beyond each training session and each race. You have to keep your feet on the ground, everything changes a lot in a short time. I hope that the work of the Jerez test has given us extra things in the dry. In MotoGP everything changes very quickly and in the elite there are many factors that influence the result. There are many technical things that can be changed on the bike. Honda is aware, they are for the job, we are working hard together and in the next races we can receive material. Perhaps the bike we have now has nothing to do with the one we have in three races”, he revealed.

Finally, Pol spoke about the return of the championship to Mugello , where it was not run last year due to the pandemic, despite the fact that the race is behind closed doors.

“It will be strange to race at Mugello without an audience. The only good thing is that we can sleep peacefully (laughs). This is a circuit where you feel the people, the fans vibrating with MotoGP, with Valentino (Rossi) and with his home riders, it is something magical and that we enjoy even if we are not Italian. We will miss the fans, without a doubt, ” Polyccio settled.