Pol Espargaro happy at Sepang despite ‘tricky’ 3rd test day

Pol Espargaro rounded off the Sepang 2 test by finishing in 11th position in the standings after a determined effort on the final day, despite a crash in the morning which disrupted his plans. However, the young Spaniard posted a best time of 2’00.490 on his 13th lap, as he undertook a total of 37 in the searing heat of Malaysia.

This result was an improvement of four tenths of second from day one and the young Spaniard powered onwards to post 126 laps across the three days. The 2013 Moto2 world champion now looks optimistically towards the next test in Qatar on the 14th-16th of March for the final test outing before the 18 race MotoGP season gets into full swing.

Pol Espargaro
“Today was a bit of a tricky day for me. The feeling I had when I first went out on track was good and I was sure of having a positive day. I had just put on a new tyre to go for a fast lap time, but I was disrupted by a slow rider on track. I had to pass him with a quite risky move and unfortunately I ended up crashing. This was at the worst possible time because it was when the track was perfect in terms of temperature. Because bike 1 needed repairing, I went out on the second bike, but any chance of improving didn’t come easily for me and I had to stop shortly after because the track was so hot that the conditions were difficult to ride on. Once things had cooled down, we had some technical issues that slowed us again and after everything, there was only half an hour right at the end of the day where I could ride again. Having said that, after falling in the morning, I did not want to push too hard and end up worse, so we limited ourselves to ensuring that everything was working properly again without pushing. It’s a big shame that we weren’t able to finish our test schedule as we had planned. Anyway, next up is Qatar and we are equipped with lots of information and ideas for improvements after 5 days in Sepang, plus I am eager to roll on to another circuit, although there is still one more day of testing here, where we will test the 2016 Michelin tyres.”

Source: Tech3 Communications