The Buddh International Circuit hosts the first MotoGP Indian Grand Prix this weekend. Several riders expressed concerns about safety conditions in recent weeks, but Pol Espargaró of GasGas Tech3 believes that these concerns were exaggerated.
The Spaniard said that he has no reasons to complain about safety: ‘I walk two times yesterday and one time this morning. Honestly, I think we were a little bit too hard before coming here and see what really was. I think it’s much better than we all expected, I believe. About safety, for sure there are some things that can be improved, but I believe in all the race tracks in the world there are places we would like to improve. And here for sure we need to figure out, especially racing and crashing. There is nothing critical, I would say, but for sure there are some places that can be improved. But as I said, I believe that we have been too hard before to come here’.
And Espargaró thinks that the Indian circuit isn’t more dangerous than others: ‘There is not so much risk, I believe there is no more than in other places. For sure, as I said there are places where it can be improved, but it doesn’t means that it’s critical. We have many tracks… the Circuit de Catalunya is where I come from and there are also places there we would like to change and we keep asking for it. And it’s one of the best circuits of the world. So, I believe that all the race tracks need to improve some thing because the bikes are a little bit faster and you reach higher top speeds. And the corner speed is higher, so when you crash the speed is always higher. And then you reach the walls much easier and faster. But this doesn’t means that the track is critical. For me is good, very good’.
The #44 also commented: ‘Looking at the layout and how it’s made, it can be one of the funniest of the year: going up and down, the corners are pretty different, there is a lot of banking in some corners. It’s something different from what we are used to race and it looks very fun’.