Espargaro aiming to confirm good CRT standing at “least favourite track of the year”
The third round of the MotoGP World Championship takes place this weekend at the Autodromo Fernanda Pires da Silva, a circuit more commonly known as Estoril. The Grand Prix of Portugal was one of the last to be confirmed on the 2012 calendar and its inclusion on next year’s schedule remains uncertain. Another major unknown here is the weather, its location on the edge of the Atlantic ocean making it prone to heavy thunderstorms like in 2010, when practice was suspended in all three classes due to a torrential downpour.
The battle at the top of the MotoGP World Championship looks set to continue between Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa but interest in the battle for CRT supremacy is equally high, with POWER ELECTRONICS ASPAR pair missing out on taking the top two positions in the new category with just two laps remaining at Jerez. Whilst Randy De Puniet was forced to retire, Aleix Espargaró celebrated his first ‘victory’ in parc fermé and the Spaniard is now the top ranked CRT rider in the championship standings. The team have no prior data to work from at this track but De Puniet has the experience of a sixth place MotoGP finish here and three podiums in the 250cc class.
Aleix Espargaró: “Portugal could well be my least favourite track of the year, which makes this an even more interesting challenge. I had a terrible time there last year and I know we’ll be struggling down the long straight this weekend. At Jerez I had the best top speed of all the CRT bikes but I was still 20km/h shy of the best MotoGP bike on a straight that is 350m shorter than this. But our job is to keep progressing and working twice as hard if we can, with the added confidence of a good result at Jerez behind us.”
Source: Aspar Team