A few races away from retiring as a full-time MotoGP rider – at least for now – Pol Espargaro has already been in the line-up of Japanese and European teams and spoke about how on the European side, with KTM, there is strong control over the rider’s actions.
The spaniard, who will be a test rider next season, said, as quoted by DAZN, that KTM has great control over what its riders do: ‘They’re tough, they’re not like the japanese who never say no to you. They’re very direct. My God, when I got there… I stopped using social media because of them, because they controlled me and said: “Yes, but the other day you were doing this and you could have done that’.
The youngest of the Espargaro brothers also recalled Johann Zarco, who was with KTM in 2019 for 13 GPs, before ending his relationship with the Austrian team prematurely: ‘There were no excuses, they were as direct as an axe to the heart. There’s a lot of maturity, other riders like Zarco have been destroyed in less than half a year, they’re very tough’.