Aleix Espargaro has ended the first day of practice for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in the unlikely position of finding himself among the current pre-race favourites – a situation that would have been almost unthinkable for Aprilia and its Spanish rider as recently as the last time MotoGP raced here only nine months ago.
Making strong progress since 2021’s action commenced at Qatar’s Losail circuit last month and securing a series of top-10 finishes for the Italian marque, Espargaro has been knocking closer to the door of Aprilia’s first ever four-cylinder MotoGP podium.
Finishing the first day at Jerez third overall and half a second from fastest man Pecco Bagnaia, Espargaro was nonetheless the fastest rider consistently on race rubber. He now goes into tomorrow delighted that he and the team are getting closer and closer to capitalising on their potential.
“The goal is to improve again, start faster than all the rest and win! No, I’m only joking!” he laughed after practice. “We’ll see what happens because for sure everyone will get closer. We know how close Jerez always is anyway; three tenths will cover everyone tomorrow in FP3. But I think aside from one hot lap, we can have a good race, because I was doing every lap in the [1m]37s.
“That’s good motivation for the race. For sure the Yamahas and maybe the Suzukis will get closer tomorrow, but it’s difficult to get faster than a 1m37s on race pace! When we’re able to do that on day one on used tyres, it means they have to improve more than me.”
There’s potentially even better things to come tomorrow, too. With Espargaro’s ideal laptime only 0.3s off Bagnaia’s, he believes that he can fight not just for the front row tomorrow in qualifying but maybe even for pole position.
“Unfortunately with the soft tyre we didn’t put everything together – we had traffic and I made mistakes, but in any case I’m fast in every sector.
“If tomorrow we can put it all together, then maybe we can challenge Bagnaia for the front row or pole position as well!”
However, while his impressively fast form might have been the main talking point after day one, it’s not what had Espargaro most fired up.
“I’m satisfied with day one,” he added, “but the main thing is that it seems like the Aprilia is working well everywhere we go, not just at one specific track. As it’s the first time for us that we’re as competitive as this, you always have the doubt about whether you’ll still be competitive when you move to a new track.
“I think that when you’re able to fight for the top five in almost every session in three super different tracks like Qatar, Portimao and Jerez, it means that, yes, there is always room to improve but more or less this is the set-up.
“I don’t want to confuse anything now that we’ve got a good base setting for the 2021 RS-GP.”
Espargaro also downplayed suggestions made by some of his rivals that the reason for Aprilia’s form was due the Jerez test in February – by insisting that considerable changes made to the bike since then (and in the course of two official tests and three race weekends) mean it’s almost impossible to compare.
“We didn’t start on that set-up because we’ve improved the bike so much since then,” said the veteran Aprilia rider. “It was only a shakedown test, the first of 2021, and after the Qatar tests, the races and the race in Portimao, we’ve stayed on the set-up that we’ve developed since then. There’s no big difference between us and the others.
“[Honda test rider] Stefan Bradl is a very good rider and he’s lived here all winter, testing many days, and he wasn’t in the top 10, so I don’t think that I have a big advantage.”
None of that means even Espargaro is ready to believe it’s the time for Aprilia to shine just yet, though, thanks in large part to a strong cohort of rivals led by the Yamaha trio of Franco Morbidelli, Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Viñales.
“I would like to say that I’m ready to win, but it’s not true!” Espargaro admitted. “Every weekend we are closer and closer to our goal, which is to fight for victories and the podium, and it looks like we’re a little closer at this track. But the three Yamaha boys will catch up, and they will be the men to beat, but I’m very happy with the first day, and I hope I can stay with them.”
In fact, with race pace almost comparable to that of Espargaro and with previous race-winning pedigree, it’s currently Morbidelli that much of the grid is tipping for glory when the lights go out on Sunday.
“Aleix has great pace, and I saw that I have good pace too,” said a typically relaxed Morbidelli after the day’s action. “I was just a tiny bit slower than him, and it’s a great starting point, but it’s only Friday.”
