Tricky start to Pol Espargaro’s Sachsenring weekend

Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro opened his 2015 MotoGP campaign at the Sachsenring by completing the first day of action in 13th place in the combined standings.

The young Spaniard began the initial shake down in FP1 with a run to 12th position after suffering an unfortunate fall at the notoriously difficult turn 11.

However, he sprinted back to the pits and leapt onto his second Yamaha YZR-M1 before concluding the session in this placement. When free practice two began, he continued his work at the tight and twisting German track as he undertook a total of 21 laps before finishing with a best time of 1’22.436, leaving him in 13th.

Nevertheless, this lap left him just over six tenths of a second back from third and he now looks onwards to tomorrow where he intends to snatch a top starting position for the ninth round battle on Sunday.

Pol Espargaro
“It goes without saying that it has been quite a tricky opening day to the weekend. Unfortunately I crashed this morning, which meant that we lost a pair of tyres so I had to start the afternoon session with a used set. Still, our rhythm was really promising as I was running in 8th position despite the fact that the tyres had reached almost race distance. However, I then entered the pits and changed tyres for the final run but when I returned to the track, my feeling on the bike was just not the same anymore. This happened to Bradley in Assen and also to us quite a few times this year, yet it’s always better to have something like this happen on a Friday instead of later on in the weekend. Nevertheless, I am happy with how the bike is working even though we still have a degree of improvement to make in some areas. Most importantly, we have to be wise tomorrow because we now have one set of tyres less but we are still confident of clinching a strong result here this weekend in Germany.”

Source: Tech3 Communications