Third for Tito Rabat on day one at Indy, spectacular crash for Pol Espargaro

Joy and bad luck for the Tuenti HP 40 team as Tito Rabat gets to lead the classification, Pol Espargaró escapes unscathed from a flight through the air but destroys the bike and Axel Pons has many problems with setup

Pol Espargaró took the spotlight on the first day of practice at the Indianapolis GP when he highsided off his Kalex in a spectacular way and, already on the ground, avoided being hit by the motorbike.

Polyccio got back on his bike that resembled a “naked” bike after the crash, rode it back to the box and after about half an hour’s work by his mechanics he could return to the track. He finished the day in 15th position and with his body battered and bruised but with his moral intact and demonstrating an extraordinary fighting spirit.

The good news for HP Tuenti 40 is the great performance of Tito Rabat, who after a tentative first practice morning was leading the afternoon session for a while and finished very close to the first. This is a very good comeback by the rider from Barcelona who’s almost fully recovered from the fracture in his foot which prevented him from being amongst the best in Germany.

15. Pol Espargaró, 1.44.706
It’s best to forget this day as quickly as possible, look forward and believe that we can end this weekend with a fight for the podium positions. I crashed heavily, luckily without hurting myself, and then tried to get the bike back to the box to be able to get back out on track as soon as I could. I’d like to thank the team as they did a “flying” job to repair the bike and get it ready for me to head back out to get another half-dozen laps in. In the morning I felt good on the bike and we could have improved in the afternoon, but I crashed and we lost very valuable practice time at a circuit as difficult as this one.

3. Tito Rabat, 1.44.022
In the morning, as it seems to be normal here, the conditions were tricky with the track being dirty, so we decided to ride preserving the tyres. In the afternoon we tried different setups, for the race as well as for a quick qualifying lap, and we’ve been able to iron out some problems. I’m happy because we did some good work. Tomorrow we have to continue like this to achieve a good starting position on the grid with the aim to be competitive in the race.

26. Axel Pons, 1.46.090
In the morning I had many problems with the setup and in the afternoon we made a little step forward, but we’re far from having finished the day in a satisfying way. I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow, as much on my riding as with the configuration of the motorbike to hopefully allow us to position ourselves higher up the field. At the moment we’re working on finding alternative telemetric settings and we’ll try them in the morning to see if they work.

Source: Pons Racing