Spirited 9th place for Pol Espargaro in Mugello

The hottest day of the Gran Premio D’Italia at Mugello saw ambient temperatures top 30 degrees and hit a track figure of 50 degrees for 23 fast and demanding laps of the Italian course for the sixth MotoGP fixture of the season. 

Starting from 11th on the grid, Pol Espargaro attached the #44 machine to the back of the second group and fought with other factory riders on the fringes of the top ten. Crashes for the likes of Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller opened up the dispute for the top of the leaderboard and Pol maintained his speed in fine fashion. The Spaniard attacked Fabio Quartararo on the final lap and passed the Frenchman for 9th place: his fourth result inside the top ten this season and – once more – a much faster total race time compared to 2018.

Pol Espargaro:

“We knew our position would be around 7-10 and we were not expecting these temperatures. With the Medium tyre we were in a very low grip situation and we knew our job would be a little bit harder. I was fighting a lot at the beginning of the race with [Franco] Morbidelli, [Alex] Rins even and [Fabio] Quartararo. It was hard, hot and with many changes of direction. It was a physical track and we saw many riders by the end were dropping and we could keep our pace. Anyway we were fourteen seconds faster in our total race time in 2018 and in the end I think we can be happy.”