The farewell press conference
At 3.15pm Aleix Espargarò summoned journalists from the MotoGP paddock for an extraordinary press conference. The rumors immediately before were confirmed: the 34-year-old Spanish driver announced his retirement from competition at the end of the season.
The Catalan chose his home race in Barcelona to reveal his future, after 21 seasons in the MotoGP, 15 of which in MotoGP with 3 victories and the final fourth place in the 2022 championship. The Spaniard’s tears at the moment of thanks were truly touching.
The words of Espargarò
“Thank you all for being here. As you might imagine, I have decided to leave the role of full-time MotoGP rider. Here in Barcelona I started running, it’s the perfect place to announce my retirement. I’ve had a very strange and unstructured career. I never imagined getting podiums and winning races with a brand that had never won, after 30 years. I’m going to step aside and try to enjoy life. Thanks to Aprilia, what we have achieved is a dreambut also to Carlos and Carmelo Ezpeleta, to my brother Pol, to my wife and my family.”
“I’m really happy with my career, many riders were better than me, but I worked really hard to reach a very high level. The memories with Aprilia of the last 3-4 years are a dream, and for this reason I wanted to retire with a good feeling. I want to stay at home more with my wife and children and today if you are not 100% focused on MotoGP, you can’t go to the track. I wanted to be very honest with myself and that’s why I decided to retire. My best memory? It would be easy to say Argentina, but this moment is no different, because I’m happy. In 2018 I was about to leave and end my career, it was my wife Laura who convinced me to continue.“
“We will have time to talk about my future, I just want to enjoy the moment and the rest of the season. I will have some chances to test, but at the moment I just want to think about what remains of the championship. After Pol’s accident it wasn’t easy, he is now very happy with his family and I don’t deny that he also pushed me to this decision.”
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