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Saturday’s mix of lightning and drizzle at Mugello makes Italian Grand Prix MotoGP race form hard to predict.
But Aprilia racer and championship contender Aleix Espargaro has some theories for how it might play out, and how he might achieve his goal – “100% the win” – even from seventh on the grid, amid a group of powerful Ducatis and a shock front row of young hard chargers.
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Espargaro, who has now finished on the podium four times in the past five races since finally taking victory for the first time at the Argentine Grand Prix last month, is one of a handful of riders who looked to go into qualifying with both race pace and the ability to put it on the line for a single flying lap – but rain just moments before the session left him unable to improve on seventh.
Starting on the third row and surrounded by Ducatis as an all-Italian trio of relative youth locked out the front row in the form of Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini, Espargaro knows that he’s got work to do.
“The bike was ready, very good,” he said of qualifying. “I was ready to fight for the pole position, so I was very frustrated to be starting in seventh place.
“I know how difficult it is to overtake in MotoGP, and sometimes you can be not perfect and take seventh place but I thought I could fight for pole position.
“Qualifying was very dangerous, and I managed to do quite a good lap in the end but not enough to be at the very front.
“The goal is to win, 100%. I am more focused and convinced than ever.
“It is a very important race for me and for the team. It’s going to be difficult with a lot of Ducatis in front, but I will try.
“We have the pace, the bike is working good, and I hope for no rain so that we can try.
“I think we’re going to have a good race and you guys are going to enjoy it.”
That’s in part because he knows that he’s going to have to come out of the gate fighting, if he’s got any hope of muscling his way through the pack of five Ducatis in front of him, with Johann Zarco and Pecco Bagnaia joining the Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo on the row in front of Espargaro.
And, with three of the five Ducati riders being fired-up youngsters with little to lose, things might get wild in the first few minutes of the race.
“Everyone in the team is saying to me that you have to be calm for the first eight laps,” Espargaro laughed, “which I understand, but I’m not fully agreeing!
“The first two laps, when everyone is a little more lost with a full fuel tank, you can take advantage of this and overtake.
“I know how they will ride though, and it will be difficult. The young riders will be fast in the first five laps.
“They’ve been brave today, and they’ve been fast, and congratulations to them because they’ve been very good.
“But I don’t think that they have the pace to fight for the podium, at least after 10 laps.
“But the first 10 laps for them will be the end of the world.”
Once things do calm down somewhat, it’s still hard to predict how the race might turn out.
With Bagnaia and Quartararo looking to have similarly strong long-run pace to Espargaro, in theory the three of them should be the guys in contention for the win come the final laps of the race – if they can make it to the front at all.
MotoGP is closer than ever in performance terms and there’s increasing focus on the impact that aerodynamics now have on overtaking – a situation complicated even further by the ferocious Mugello start finish straight with its blind kink.
“In MotoGP right now it’s very difficult to be strategic, you have to be smart and decide by the way you’re riding,” Espargaro explained.
“The problem is that if Pecco can overtake them [the front row], I don’t think they’ll be able to re-overtake him.
“If I overtake them, they will 100% try to overtake me, so I’ll have to be aggressive.
“It’s not going to be easy, but I think Fabio is more in trouble than me because my bike is faster than the Yamaha. Not a lot, if you analyse the speeds of FP4 where I didn’t have a draft, but with the draft the bike isn’t bad.
“I think it’s going to be a fun race.
“The best rider with a full tank, I have a feeling that it’s Fabio. When he feels good he can start from the front and go away, it’s unbelievable how fast he is.
“I struggle a little bit more, Pecco struggles a little bit more, but it depends on the track and the tyre.
“With a hard front I feel extremely good, but with a medium I feel like the bike is going to close – and I don’t think I can use the hard.”
