Pol Espargaró ‘s arrival at Honda coincided with Marc Márquez ‘s serious injury to his right arm and a 2021 preseason with frozen engines and practically no prior training, which complicated the process of adaptation to the new bike to the extreme.
For the rider from Granollers the course went from less to more, but the new injury to Márquez, this time in his right eye, compromised Honda’s preseason again.
This Friday, the HRC riders staged a meeting with the media prior to the start of the preseason, which will start at the beginning of February in Sepang , and which Pol hopes will be much more productive than that of 2021.
“Last year we didn’t start as we wanted, but things have to be taken as they come. At the end of the season I began to feel good and my confidence began to increase,” Espargaró assured at the online press conference.
“In Valencia it could have ended very well -he did not race when he suffered a fall and was injured-. This preseason I am working hard, trying different things and training sessions, and I know that Honda is also doing it. The idea is to start this course where we left off past,” added the 30-year-old pilot.
Espargaró was able to test the initial prototype that Honda is preparing for 2022 in the tests that were held last November in Jerez , but he is waiting to get back on the bike to check the improvements.
“If the bike is better or not, we will see it in the tests. We cannot say now, without comparing ourselves with the others; both in the tests and in the first races of the year,” he said.
Espargaró valued very positively that Marc Márquez could be present in the pre-season tests, since the Catalan is the one who has achieved the best results with this machinery in recent years.
“I don’t think the previous bike was tailor-made for Marc, but he was a genius riding it,” he said, before concluding: “Marc being in pre-season will be super important.”
The MotoGP preseason will start with two test days in Sepang on February 5 and 6, and will conclude with tests at the new Mandalika circuit, in Indonesia, between the 11 and 13 of the same month. Before that, on the 8th, the Repsol Honda Team will make the official presentation of the 2022 team. The first race of the year will be within the framework of the Qatar Grand Prix , from March 4 to 6 in Losail.
