“If my tires were the same as Marquez’s, why was I 3 seconds slower?”

2024-09-03 17:12:10

Aleix Espargaró in Aragon finished the worst MotoGP race in which he competed in the last three years. After a promising start to the weekend which saw the four Aprilia machines go straight into Q2the script changed completely the next day, Saturday, after torrential rain washed away the rubber track overnight on Friday.

The two official Aprilias of Aleix and Maverick Viñales finished in the last two positions in Q2, earning 11th and 12th starting positions respectively; The Sprint Race was terrible for the benefit of the Noale drivers, and this was confirmed by the fall of Espargaró in the first corner, that is. right after the start, and with the last post by Viñales, 19th in a disappointing race for the number #12.

On Sunday, far from finding solutions, the Aprilia Racing Team duo again went through a real ordeal; Viñales decided to abandon mid-race after losing grip on his rear tire. calling the situation “dangerous”and Espargaró decided to hold on to the road and save the furniture with a tenth place that did not even remotely satisfy the Granollers team.

“It was terrible, a nightmare, probably the worst race in the last three years for everyone at Aprilia”the summary given by number #41 at the end of Sunday’s race. “We’ve completely changed the bike, I’ve never ridden it like this. It was hard for me to put my knee on the ground. The tires didn’t work and it was very slippery. It was a very dangerous race, I was more concerned about avoiding an accident than being competitive. “I couldn’t lean into the corners, it was a very strange and new situation.”

Espargaró was quick to compare his performance on Friday – when he finished second in the Practice session, two tenths behind Marc Márquez – with the poor results achieved on Saturday and Sunday: “What angers me is that we were among the fastest on Friday evening under normal track conditions, we were very competitive with a set time of 1:46.On Saturday and Sunday, in the dry and on slicks, I was four seconds away from my time on Friday. It is shameful and we must understand what happened. “It is very difficult for me to accept.”emphasis on Catalan.

Espargaró focused all his anger on the Michelin rear tire “it didn’t work, it was sliding everywhere”and with the one who was “very difficult to avoid falling, I was fighting with Alex Rins and Nakagami. For the first time in my career, I could not support myself in the corners.”

Aleix doesn’t want to bury what happened at Motorland, and he demands explanations to try to understand why Aprilia was the only factory penalized in Aragon due to the state of the range: “I want a technical explanation as to why the coin didn’t work. Of course the conditions weren’t good, but that’s no excuse because it’s the same for everyone. My tires and Marc Márquez’s were the same. Why was I three seconds slower per lap?“, asks Espargaró.

Also read: Marc Márquez explodes the Aragón stand: Motorland records the best entry since 2018

Moreover, the Aprilia driver showed that “not the first time” that his factory suffers like this during the weekend because of the tires: “I remember Argentina two years ago with the rainy and cold conditions, or Jerez in quality. You can have a track with more or less bite, like Barcelona or Misano. But when we find something unusual , like this weekend, it’s incredible how he does it. It’s hard to ride a motorcycle. On Saturday I did a time of 1:50, the same time that Alonso López did on Friday with the Moto2“.