Espargaro takes top ten finish despite technical issues

The Indianapolis GP featured a reduced and injured field today, despite the presence of two wild cards. Nicky Hayden missed the race due to his Saturday crash, whilst Casey Stoner took to the grid hurting considerably from his own fall in qualifying. There were six further crashes and breakdowns in the contest. Ben Spies took the early lead, but two laps later he was caught by Pedrosa, who passed him on lap four. There was no looking back, and he won from Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso –ten and sixteen seconds back, respectively.

Today was a day to break the deadlock. Aleix Espargaró and Randy De Puniet were competing for the lead of the provisional CRT category standings. Both were riding excellently over the course of the weekend, but a spanner was thrown in the works for one of them come race day. The POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar duo started strong, but mechanical issues affected their end result. Espargaró experienced a gear change problem that affected him on every corner. Despite this, he held on to take tenth place at Indianapolis.

10th Aleix Espargaró: “I was very focused on having a good race, because I had a lot of fun riding this weekend. I got a good start and was feeling comfortable, but at the midway point of the race I realised that the gearbox was starting to fail. Suddenly the bike went into a false neutral. I was still able to catch Valentino and tried to follow him on every corner, but when I hit the false neutral again I ran wide. I had to make up the time again every time. I stuck with Hernández after that, but it was hard to get past him with this issue. Despite everything, I was able to place tenth and got six points for my tally, so we have to be satisfied and look forward to next weekend.”

Source: Aspar Team Press Release