Pol Espargaro positively gets up to speed on the opening day at Spielberg

Pol Espargaro bolted into action during the first day of the Austrian GP and finished in 13th as he battled the rapid Spielberg circuit for the first time. The young Spaniard wasted no time in getting up to speed, despite having to learn the new venue on the 2016 MotoGP calendar. Nevertheless, he completed 25 laps in FP1, the joint highest number in the session, and ended the practice with a personal best that was only a second from the front. His progression continued in the afternoon as he carried on taking steps forward in preparation for Sunday. The 25-year-old upped his pace and eventually powered to a time that was just over half a second from 5th, marking a solid close to the opening day. The current leading satellite rider in the championship standings will seek to maintain his momentum tomorrow and clinch a top tier grid position for the 28-lap shootout.

Pol Espargaro – Position: 13th – Time: 1’25.221 – Laps: 47
“It’s nice to be back on my M1 after the summer break and personally, I like the layout of the circuit a lot. It’s fun to ride, flowing and the grip level is really high. There are a few critical points on the track and it’s very fast, but it’s definitely different to the places where we usually go racing and that makes it special. Having said that, I’m convinced that we didn’t show our true potential today, as I still don’t know the layout enough and I’m lacking some references. Therefore, I occasionally missed my braking points, especially after having put on new tyres. I felt a bit nervous on the bike and for sure my fastest lap time is quite far from where we could have been, yet the gap to the factory guys isn’t too big and we have a lot of margin of improvement to make. It was very helpful to follow some other riders today and this was mainly what I tried to do in order to quickly obtain as much information as possible. After two sessions we now have a good base for the weekend and I’m looking forward to getting more laps under my belt tomorrow, plus I’m sure we will climb up in the rankings.”

Source – Tech3