Espargarò on the front hard: “Gathered experience for the long race” | FP

Aprilia on the podium

The aim of Aleix Espargaro in the Sprint Race at Silverstone it was obviously to aim for victory, even more so after the superlative pole position achieved by the Spaniard ofAprilia in qualifying. An appointment with the 1st place that in the end did not arrive, even if the #41 still crossed the finish line in third position behind Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martin, in a race in which the potential challenge for 3rd place between Espargarò and Bagnaia faded away due to the latter’s crash.

Front tire: why not medium or soft?

A test that saw Espargarò engaged with the hard front tirea choice that according to the 35-year-old influenced the Sprint, at least for the Noale team: “The average doesn’t work for Aprilia why does the steering close too much? – he admitted after the race to Sky Sports MotoGP – the soft was an option that could make us more competitive, but the 32°C asphalt was too much for 10 laps, and in the end I put the hard on also to gain experience for tomorrow. In any case I have to say that Enea and Jorge had a stratospheric pace. They did a lot of laps that were equivalent to poles in other years, so I did my best but I wasn’t able to attack”.

The advantages of hard for the long race

Espargarò was nevertheless satisfied with the Aprilia’s performance on the Silverstone track, even though the Spaniard focused in particular on what could be the developments of the long race with the choice of tyres: “Here I go fast, the Aprilia goes very well and it’s a pleasure to drive here, otherwise you don’t get the 57.3 of the pole – he added – there are a number of things: the new aerodynamics make the bike more agile. It doesn’t change much, but there are still important details, and we hope tomorrow with the long race that everyone will put the hard tyre in front and the medium tyre in the back to be able to stay closer to the Ducati in the final part of the race”.

“If instead everyone else put the average instead of the hard they will struggle in the last part of the racewhile we will have an advantage with the hard especially if we were to go fast like we did today. Today for me it wasn’t easy with the hard especially in the first laps; Bagnaia told me that I was braking very early, but at least We know how this tyre will go for tomorrow and we can find a better set with a little more load and change the pressure. We are the only ones who have done it, so tomorrow we will be more prepared“.