Tyre problems force Aleix Espargaro to retire from Italian GP

 In MotoGP, News

With a good performance in today’s Italian GP at Mugello, Aleix Espargaró was making up for a difficult weekend that was characterised by ups and downs.

After battling with the best all the way through FP3 on Saturday, Espargaró had ended up in the last spots on the starting grid, forced to ride in the qualifiers astride the second bike. Once again positive in the warm up session, finishing with the ninth best time, Aleix started from the 21st spot on the grid.

He gradually moved up to 12th place, standing out with a good race pace and giving the impression that he would be able to move even farther up in the rankings. But 3 laps from the end, a total and abrupt deterioration of rear tyre performance forced him to retire.

ALEIX ESPARGARO
“I knew from the start that it would be a hard race, but I started well and immediately recovered some positions. Around the tenth lap, I began to feel that the rear tyre wasn’t working right. I had very little grip and I risked crashing a couple of times going into corners with the throttle closed. Lap after lap, things got worse until they were bad enough to force me to box. What happened was very strange. We’ll analyse the tyre to figure out the source of the problem. This was an important weekend where, unlike other occasions, we were never able to be competitive. I am still convinced that the potential of the RS-GP is not what we have seen so far. Rather than forget this weekend, we need to study the data well to find what didn’t work right during these three days.”

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