Top five on day one at Aragon for Pol Espargaro

Monster Yamaha Tech3 team rider Pol Espargaro positively kicked off his campaign at the Motorland Aragon circuit by storming to 5th place overall aboard the YZR-M1. The young Spaniard began by completing the shakedown in 9th with his personal best being only 0.165 back from reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo.

The encouraging start left him confident of continuing his progress in the afternoon and there, he carried on adjusting the setup of his Yamaha MotoGP bike for Sunday. He pushed on but unfortunately fell at the notorious second corner half way through the session. However, he raced back to the pits and bravely remounted before posting his fastest lap on his 12th that saw him end up only 0.320 from the top of the field.

The notable opening sees the 25-year-old primed for a successful day tomorrow where he will intend to extend his highly positive MotoGP qualifying record at the Aragon circuit.

Pol Espargaro
“Today has been a strong start to the weekend and I believe that finishing inside the top 5 is a truly positive result for us. The Hondas are running really well here and you can see that by looking at the time sheets, so to be as close as we are is certainly a promising way to kick off proceedings. Yet, in the middle of the FP2 session, I made a slight mistake and crashed in the second corner while I was changing direction, which was a pity. I didn’t expect this to happen and I think we have to work a bit more on the setting of the bike in order to increase the front grip so that we avoid this kind of issue for the rest of the weekend. However, I was able to cut my lap time towards the end of the practice even though I was not pushing at the maximum level. Having said that, we need to improve tomorrow and make a step up as our main target is to fight with Cal for the best independent rider position in Sunday’s race.”

Source: Tech3