The Silverstone weekend Pol Espargaró made official what was already known: that next season he will not race with Honda, leaving behind two very difficult years in the Japanese factory team.
“I have a clear future, I have signed for two years and I am going to the team I want. I am very lucky”, the rider told Motorsport.com without revealing his destination, which will be none other than the Tech3-KTM team in what will mean the return of the Spaniard to the Mattighofen manufacturer, something that could be announced this very end of week.
But that was not the only contribution of the 2013 Moto2 world champion in his appearances before the media. On Sunday, after completing, once again, a very discreet performance in the British Grand Prix race, in which he could only be 14th, almost 14 seconds behind the winner, Pecco Bagnaia, Pol expressed his frustration, questioning the involvement of the Tokyo manufacturer with the real problem, which is none other than the difficulty in riding the bike.
“What bothers me is that Honda does not speak out, that there is no reaction. I do not see that it is very worried. The worst thing is that a manufacturer like this does not show its muscle,” he said.
Ten days after that, Espargaró has completely changed his speech in the statements prior to the Austrian Grand Prix , which takes place this weekend.
“We are going to see how we behave this weekend, the Repsol Honda Team and HRC are working hard to improve our situation,” he says in the statement released by the team.
Spielberg will almost certainly be the stage where KTM will announce the signing of Pol to race in Tech3, which many have cataloged as the return of the prodigal son, after the four years that the Spaniard carried out the development of the RC16 ( 2017-2020).
“The races in Austria always seem to be very dramatic, but it’s always a good weekend. It’s a very particular track with a lot of very hard braking, a lot of stop and go and few corners,” explains the Catalan.
One of the main novelties of the weekend is the change in the layout of the circuit, which has introduced a chicane between turns 1 and 3 to try to minimize the danger.
“I’m interested to see how the new chicane feels, the straight to the end of the climb (Turn 3) was always very fast, so I think this change will make everything very different.”
With the future resolved and without options in the current championship, for Espargaró the important thing now is to finish the course in the best possible way.
“Our goal is to have a quiet weekend and qualify better, that’s the key,” says the boy from Granollers.
