Espargaro hoping for good battle with his teammate at home race

 In MotoGP, News

The big question ahead of qualifying for the Catalan Grand Prix revolved around which tyre compound would be used by the MotoGP riders. The best times in practice had been recorded by the top three in the championship (Stoner, Lorenzo and Pedrosa), and when the Saturday afternoon run came around it was Casey Stoner who ended up on pole position with a time of 1’41.295. Crutchlow and Dovizioso had been amongst the frontrunners in the session, taking the lead before Stoner came within touching distance of his own 1’41.186 record time from 2008.

With their preparatory work done and their base settings established, the POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar riders are eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s race. Randy de Puniet and Aleix Espargaró are both experiencing a lack of rear grip with their ART machines, but that did not stand in De Puniet’s way as he recorded the best time of the CRT competitors. Teammate Espargaró was close behind, as the two placed thirteenth and fifteenth, respectively. Both have high expectations for tomorrow’s MotoGP race at the Montmeló circuit, with it’s long straights and corners demanding maximum attention from the riders.

15th Aleix Espargaró 1.44.041 (22 laps): “I would have liked to have finished a bit higher up the order. We have worked hard all weekend, but we still haven’t found anything to give us more grip on the rear. The heat is forcing us to ride with the hard tyre tomorrow, and the positive thing is that we have good pace with that and are closer to Randy. The race will be a long one, we will need to be able to manage it in order to try and get into the fight to be the best CRT. I hope that it will be a straight fight between my teammate and I, as we have both done a good job this weekend. We have been told that maybe temperatures will drop tomorrow, and even that there is a chance of rain. We will try to be ready to race in any conditions.”

Source: Aspar Team

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