Pol Espargaro retires from Qatar GP with technical problems

Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Pol Espargaro suffered ill luck during an eventful opening race of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship at the Commercial Bank of Qatar Grand Prix.

Pol Espargaro’s positive form during the preseason and free practice sessions unfortunately came to an unsuccessful conclusion at the opening race at the floodlit Qatar circuit, due to an technical problem causing him to pull into the pits and retire.

The reigning Moto2 World Champion ran competitively all weekend and impressed with his rookie performances on the MotoGP bike during all sessions. Espargaro started the MotoGP race strongly, and was placed inside the top ten comfortably.

The young Spanish rider set into a good race pace and held 8th position until the gearbox issue struck on lap 18 with only four laps remaining around the 5.83 kilometre Losail International Circuit.

Pol Espargaro – DNF:
“I really can’t say that luck helped us today, even if we deserved it after this weekend. We didn’t start with the best of terms as I am still not completely healed from my shoulder injury. Then I crashed on Friday and my confidence fell slightly. The good news was that my injury didn’t worsen because of this, and the team did a great job helping me to raise my confidence. With regards to today, it’s unfortunate that this happened as I could have finished inside the top six on my MotoGP debut. I am still happy with my performance because the results all weekend were competitive Before my problems started, I was just eight seconds behind the leader and catching Dovizioso and Aleix, which was more than I could have hoped for. Now I will rest and prepare for the next race in Austin as I definitely want to be at my 100% there”.

Source: Tech3 Communications