Pol Espargaro delighted with first progress in MotoGP: “I truly enjoy riding my new Yamaha YZR-M1”

New Tech3 Yamaha rider Pol Espargaro delivered yet another eye-catching performance to follow up from his confident and assured first ride on the YZR-M1 machine yesterday.

The reigning Moto2 World Champion lowered his lap time by well over a second in a 72-lap stint today and a best time of 1.31.836 was less than 0.5s behind Smith’s pace and less than a second outside of Lorenzo’s speed.

Further proof of how quickly Espargaro is adapting to the new MotoGP challenge came when he was able to reduce the gap to the top of the time of the timesheets from almost two seconds yesterday to just 1.3s this afternoon.

Pol Espargaro 9th 1.31.836 – 72 laps:
“I’m really happy with the progress we made today and enthusiastic, because I thought my first impressions on the bike would be worse, as it was the case when I changed from 125cc to Moto2. Fortunately I truly enjoy riding my new Yamaha YZR-M1. I know that the difficulties of improving my lap time will start soon, but I think we have done a pretty good job so far. I was 1.3s faster than yesterday and that is just one second behind Jorge, who is my reference point as fastest Yamaha. Today I started to use different Bridgestone front and rear tyres to understand the behaviour of them and I used the full carbon brakes, which are so different from what I have used before. I hope it will not rain tomorrow, as I really would like to collect some more information with the bike before going into the winter break.”

Source: Tech3 Yamaha