Pol Espargaró: "Without the crash, Márquez and I would come out in the second row"

Portimao.- The rider from Granollers crashed in the last sector when the official timing was running out of its last minutes, an accident that left him with no options to improve the 10th position on the starting grid and that, in addition, caused the canceled a lap to Marc Márquez that had placed him on provisional pole.

“I was riding and waiting for the last two laps of Q2, which is when I thought the time could be made, as has been seen when everyone has improved in that final stretch of the session. I was coming on a good lap to put myself in second row, and I wanted to secure the lap, but to avoid a puddle I stepped on another, I lost the front end and with that the options of being in the second row or touching the first, possibly,” the Honda man reported the crash.

Despite the mistake that has compromised part of his options, Pol Espargaró feels strong enough to face this Sunday’s race with those in front.

“In the morning the warm up is going to be crucial, it is important to finish testing the tires that we will use for the race. Surely we will start with the medium compound both front and rear. Last year here we did it with the hard rear, but the three from the podium they did it with the medium, so we will go in that line. Starting so far back I am not too worried about wearing a medium rear tire, perhaps the most critical thing will be the first corner, there will be quite a fight to get in. Apart from that, the bike here works well and without the crash both Marc and I would have been in the first two rows”.

Although the race will be a bit blind, since it is scheduled to be dry and the weekend has been wet, Espargaró has a plan.

“The objective is to climb positions, we have slower riders in front, the key is to see how much time we lose overtaking, because with some bike it will be difficult”, he said in reference to the Ducati of Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi. “They are bikes with a lot of top speed, but you have to pass them quickly so as not to lose time at the end of the race”.

“But here we are strong when braking and if we overtake quickly I feel good to have a good race. But the first laps and the first corner are very important to have a good time”, settled Polyccio.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team