The flash starring Pol Espargaró in Friday’s FP1 had no continuity in the afternoon, when the Honda rider could only be 13th, just ahead of Marc Márquez, his teammate, who is currently provisionally out of Q2 of the Grand Prize of France, which is celebrated this Saturday.
Espargaró went from dominating a dry session for the first time this season, to finishing 13th.
” In the afternoon I have mounted the new tire (to attack the time) and of five laps, four have been canceled with a yellow flag and the last one, which is the one in which I could have improved, I made a mistake, I was coming a couple of tenths under the time, but we are having a problem stopping the bike and at turn 8, which is the hardest braking on the circuit, I went wide”.
“The potential is high, going very to the limit and risking the type to make a good one, but if it comes out tomorrow we will be able to qualify well, if not it will be time to go through Q1 or be further back at the start,” Pol resigned.
In the afternoon, the bulk of the Hondas finished outside the top twelve positions, so the slight improvements found in the Jerez test do not seem to have been confirmed at Le Mans.
“We’ve been behind quite a few races, it’s nothing new. I think that by finishing the lap I was doing well I could have finished in the top five, but I couldn’t close it because the bike isn’t comfortable to do it, that’s why Alex Márquez crashed and he doesn’t get past the top fifteen in any training session, that’s why it’s also difficult for Taka (Takaaki Nakagami) or Marc is quite far behind and then he manages to chase someone on Saturday, and that’s an important detail”.
“We are seeing in recent races that Marc is glued to everyone and that is not normal. When he is fast he does not need to go behind anyone, I remember that when I was in KTM it was me who tried to find his wheel, but now It’s not like that, and that means we’re not at our best.”
Regarding the improvements of the test, Pol said that they have substantially changed the configuration of the bike.
“We are using a very different bike in terms of measurement and height setup compared to the Jerez race, and it is a bike that should not be working within Honda’s parameters, due to the measurements they have, but it still works. The Jerez test went quite well for us and here I am being the fastest Honda”.
“It works, we don’t know why and it’s one of those things that we don’t understand why. We tried a bike that shouldn’t work, but it works. In the morning it was a bit on the limit, but I could stop it, but with a new rear tire, for the afternoon, I am no longer able to stop it in the same place. They are those things that we do not quite understand and that is why we do not move in the direction we want”, settled the boy from Granollers.
