Pol Espargaró: "I'm positive with Friday's grip"

Motegi.- After the good performance shown on Friday at the first contact with the track at the Japanese Grand Prix, Pol Espargaró hoped to take advantage of his direct pass to Q2 to get a good starting position on the grid and build, from there, a decent home race performance for Honda. However, a crash in FP2, in wet conditions, and not finding grip in the official timed session, relegated him to the bottom of the time sheet.

Fortunately, the Spanish runner assured that “everything is fine” after the fall suffered in the second free.

“The track changed a lot from morning to afternoon, despite the fact that it was raining at both times and there was a lot of water on the track,” he said.

“In the morning I was riding quite comfortably, when I crashed I was close to the top ten. But I mounted the front medium compound and I crashed, I was improving my time quite a bit but I crashed because I was pushing, looking for the limit in wet conditions. It’s a shame because I was comfortable and I noticed that I could go quite fast”, lamented the man from Granollers.

Qualified for Q2, Pol expected to get into the first three rows.

“In the afternoon the conditions have changed a lot, it is true that there was less water on the track, especially in the final part of the session, but this has changed the reactions of the bike a lot and it has hurt me, I have lost all the grip, especially with an angle, entering the curves with maximum speed, I lost the rear, I was not able to lean as in the morning and it has cost me a lot”, he valued

Espargaró will leave Honda at the end of the season and Motegi is a setting that was propitious for a good farewell result before returning to KTM.

“I don’t know what to expect, it depends on the conditions we find on the track at the time of the race,” he said.

“If we have the grip from Friday in the dry and we go out with the soft rear compound, which I think may be the choice, together with the hard front compound, I feel good to have a good race. On Friday we had the grip I need to apply my style driving and I think we can be very fast, I was a tenth off the lead and I was able to do well after one lap. On the contrary, I am positive,” he remained hopeful.

Although Pol has known for some time that he will not continue with Honda and is trying to finish the year as well as possible within the difficulty, the comparison with his teammate, Marc Márquez, who has had an arm injury for two years, is still sensitive.

“Obviously Marc is very happy, it’s logical. That a rider is injured, reappears and takes pole is very special for anyone, even for Marc despite having so many, it’s sure very important. The conditions weren’t dry, but equally It was very complicated and he has been the one who has best known how to resolve the situation,” he said in this regard.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team