Aprilia’s rider, Aleix Espargaró, hasn’t been at his peak lately. We haven’t seen him leading the pack since the Catalunya Grand Prix. Although he was a favorite at Mandalika, Espargaró unfortunately crashed during the Sprint Race. On Sunday, he finished in the tenth position. The Spanish rider shared his feelings about the track and his expectations for the upcoming Australian Grand Prix.
Espargaró commented on his initial impressions, “The track is quite bumpy. I lose a lot of time on the last turn; it’s crazy. I’m much slower than last year. My best lap today is about half a second slower than last year. I lose almost all of these half seconds on the last turn. I don’t have an explanation. The only thing I did when I stopped was complain about that turn and explain a bit to the engineers. We compared it with last year’s fast lap, which is similar in almost all areas. There’s a four-tenths difference, but three of those are lost on the last turn. That’s a significant amount.”
Espargaró also tried out different tires. “Since yesterday, there were rumors that the long race might be tomorrow. So, I didn’t quite understand why so many riders insisted on starting with the soft tire if the long race is tomorrow. I was one of the few with the medium tire. When I stopped at the pits, I was obviously far behind. I did a 30.0, but I was the first of the 7 with the medium tire. The rest were all with soft. So, even though it doesn’t look good because I was ninth, I was actually first. I maintained a rhythm of 30 lows with that tire and I’m happy. Then with the soft tires, I made a mistake on the time attack lap with the first soft. Even then, I was competitive and satisfied.”
On the topic of the schedule change, moving the fast race to Saturday, Espargaró said, “I think it’s smart. In the end, we’re here to race. Given that it would be crazier if there were no race at all tomorrow, it makes sense to have a race. But I’ve seen that the procedure is exactly the same, even if Dorna has changed its name. It’s a pure race, so it’s logical. Since we come to Australia, which is very far away, all points are given, and a long race is held on Saturday. But nothing changes; it’s the sprint race that will be 27 laps instead of 13. Then on Sunday, hopefully, conditions will change, and the sprint will take place.”
Espargaró shared his feelings about the upcoming race, “Last year I was very fast and competitive, like almost every Friday this year. But in the races, in the last six laps, I suffered a lot from tire degradation. So, we’ve worked on something different now, being a bit more conservative because I’ve had many problems on the last turn.”