Pol Espargaró: "Imagine if I shot Fabio with my brother fighting for the World Cup"

Motegi.- The one in Japan was a strange Grand Prix for Pol Espargaró, who did not arrive with the best inertia, after having only added seven points in the last nine appointments. However, on Friday, as soon as he went out on the track, the youngest of the brothers from Granollers (Barcelona) once again noticed those strong points of the Honda that he praised so much throughout last winter. His feelings were reflected in the time sheets, so much so that he was only a tenth behind the fastest (Jack Miller) in the first free trial, a circumstance that on Saturday, with a wet track, gave him direct access to the second screen of the timed (Q2).

Polyccio , who found no explanation for this sudden increase in the performance of the RC213V –Marc Márquez attributed it to the high level of grip that the asphalt presented–, started on Sunday from eleventh place on the grid, and finished one place behind, 17 seconds behind the winner (Miller) and ten seconds behind Márquez, his partner in the HRC workshop.

After the test, the #44 claimed to have enjoyed the early stages, in which he lapped behind Fabio Quartararo and who, he said, could have tried to overtake assuming some other risk. Despite this, the Frenchman’s tight fight for the title with Aleix Espargaró, brother of Pol, and with Pecco Bagnaia, led him to be more conservative, so as not to risk playing a potentially decisive role in the resolution of the championship.

“I had good laps. Above all, in the first three, four, or five laps, in which I was behind Fabio, and I think I had something more than him. But it is impossible to overtake. I accelerated better than him, but I was not capable to gain that speed that would have allowed me to get parallel to him and overtake him under braking”, Espargaró summed up. “And I didn’t want to risk wearing it either. Imagine if I took Fabio ahead of me with my brother fighting for the World Championship”, reflected the still Honda rider, who will wear the GasGas suit next season.

For the Catalan, Aprilia ‘s error that condemned his brother this Sunday is the most obvious proof that nothing should be taken for granted in MotoGP , and that anything can happen, whether it is related to the rider, the bike or the influence it has. the team.

“The thing with Aleix was very bad luck. This is where we say that in MotoGP anything can happen. The luck [for Aleix] is that Pecco crashed and Fabio and Enea Bastianini finished very far behind (seventh and ninth, respectively), so who didn’t lose that much either,” Espargaró clinched.