until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Aleix Espargaro’s firm assessment of his Aprilia MotoGP team’s readiness to fight for the title was backed up on the first day of the penultimate race weekend at Sepang – which on his side of the garage proved something of a disaster.
Rain hitting the track ahead of second Friday practice meant the lessons of the opening session were made retroactively more valuable, but a double whammy of mechanical issues had made that a complete write-off for Espargaro.
The Spaniard was limited to five laps in the dry and just one flyer, good enough for 20th-fastest on the day.
He ended the session on the sidelines because he’d crashed his first bike due to a clutch issue that made “the rear suddenly lock” – as per Aprilia team manager Paolo Bonora – and then had to abort his programme with his second RS-GP due to an alarm on the dashboard that Bonora said reflected a pneumatic issue.
“Difficult beginning of the most important weekend of the season so far,” summed up Espargaro, who trails championship leader Pecco Bagnaia by 27 points with 50 up for grabs and must outscore Bagnaia by three points this weekend to keep his title hopes alive into the Valencia finale.
“I had a problem with the clutch, a big problem with the clutch in bike one, I stopped after one lap, and then I restarted and I crashed immediately because of this problem. And then with the second bike also I did just one outlap and then I had an alarm on the dash and I had to stop and I couldn’t continue with that bike due to the engine.
“I watched the session from my garage, and in the afternoon it rained… difficult to say something about today.”
Espargaro said after Phillip Island that Aprilia’s recent operational difficulties have shown that, despite the massive progress it’s made with the RS-GP, it is not quite ready to fight for a MotoGP title.
“I was a little bit critical with our performance in general, with the team performance in the last races after the race of Australia. And looked like for the journalists and for Aprilia was too critical.
“Today you can analyse my free practice one. It is how it is. The results are there.
“We are, the second part of the championship, not at the level that we’ve been in the first part. And I can’t do anything else.
“So we have to really believe in this team – and I really believe that next year we can fight again for the title, if we do the same things we did in the first part of the championship. Without any doubt.”
When asked by MotoGP.com about Espargaro’s post-Phillip Island criticism and subsequent Friday difficulties, Bonora said: “Was absolutely not the best start for us. He came yesterday inside the garage with a very positive way of thinking, he pushed a lot with everybody to try to find the best, and this morning was something that made him not in a good mood. This is a polite way to say his way of speaking this morning.
“But because he recognises that we are a family, and we try to do our best every time, he’s still in a positive situation and we try to find the best.”
“I think they love me because I’m really honest,” said Espargaro, who has been Aprilia’s de facto team leader on the rider side since arriving in 2017.
“And when I tell them ‘congratulations, the bike is fantastic’ – or when, I remember perfectly, back in 2021 here in Malaysia, when I tried the first [version of the new] bike two years ago, big revolution, I was crying when I came to the pits in the test.
“When I’m critical with them, it’s because I want to push them more because I feel they are able to do better. We are not at the level in the last races.”
