Pol Espargaro says he’s “pissed off” at the situation in today’s Indonesian Grand Prix qualifying at the new Mandalika Bay circuit, as he and his fellow Honda riders continue to suffer with Michelin’s altered rear tyre specification for the high-temperature inaugural MotoGP race at the new circuit.
With record track temperatures expected, the French tyre company has reverted to a harder construction of rear tyre, one last used in 2019, to give riders greater stability as surface temperatures approach 70ºC. However, that stability comes at the cost of grip – and has left Espargaro deeply frustrated.
Starting tomorrow’s race from 16th, two places behind best Honda qualifier and team-mate Marc Marquez, Espargaro’s situation is far removed from the test at Mandalika last month on Michelin’s normal rear tyre – and has left the Spaniard worrying that he might not even make the chequered flag as a result.
“Honda all winter were taking a lot of information from the tyres,” explained Espargaro, “and even here we were working hard to recognise the problem of the bike. They brought a completely new bike in Jerez, in Malaysia, that fits perfectly to the tyres – then there were some problems during the test and to improve it Michelin brings four-year-old tyres. What we face is that we have what I think is the best bike on the grid, with the current, normal tyres – but it’s not made for four-year-old tyres.
“I’m not a Michelin technician. I’m not the guy who tells them what to do. But if we’re always trying to be better, you can’t bring a four-year-old tyre. It’s something that doesn’t match with the current situation. Sure, Honda had problems – but we worked with the problems, we improved the situation, by doing a completely new bike, not by using the one from four years ago. Problems need to be solved in a different way.
“It’s funny, because we all had problems in the test with the tyres, because of temperatures – but we have problems now to finish the race with these tyres. Huge problems with the front tyre, and we don’t know what to do with it in the race. Maybe we can’t end the race. Michelin have tried to improve the situation, but for us they’ve made it worse.”
His sentiments were echoed by Marquez, who himself had one of his worst days in a long time, crashing heavily out of qualifying not once but twice as he threw everything he had at trying to progress into Q2.
And in fact for Marquez the issues might be even more pronounced than they are for Espargaro, thanks to the unique way in which he rides the RC213V and the issues he’s having of late at adapting to the new 2022 machine.
Now very much focused on the rear rather than the front, it’s meant that he’s already been struggling with front tyre confidence – and with the new harder rear managing to stress the front even more, he’s more on the limit than he has been for a long time.
“We are struggling a lot to ride in a good way,” he admitted. “In qualifying I didn’t feel ready but I had no option but to try. It’s true that the second crash was something that I could have been able to avoid, but when I started to go wide I knew it was my last chance and I had to try.
“In the test, we rode very well, but since we arrived back we’ve been struggling with the rear and then we push more with the front, and I can’t ride well with the front because I don’t feel good with it, like I already said in Qatar.
“What we have improved a lot with this new Honda is the rear grip, but I said from the first test that we were struggling with the front. With the other Honda I knew the limit very well, and I knew if I could push more or less. All these things make it a little bit more difficult.”
What’s making the situation even worse for Espargaro is that he believes it hasn’t just hampered the Honda riders (with all four of them failing to make it out of Q1) but also handed a massive advantage to rivals Ducati, with the Italian manufacturer turning around a poor test performance from only a month ago.
“We saw Ducati struggling massively on the test here,” he fumed. “They were super slow, especially on rhythm, but now they’re flying, and we’re especially pissed off with that. We think it is unfair in some ways because we’ve worked so much in the pre-season with a new bike and Honda did an amazing job, and we don’t deserve these results.
“We are not as bad as we look, not as bad as the position on the grid. There are much slower guys in front of us, like [Gresini rider Fabio] Di Giannantonio. He was riding [1m]33.7s or [1m]34.0s laps in pace, but he could do a [1m]31.6s lap in qualifying. It’s something that we don’t understand so much.”
However, that line of thinking predictably didn’t strike Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia as convincing.
“For sure it’s a different tyre,” the Italian countered, “less grip than the one in the test, but we are going very fast compared to the test. In my side I prefer it [the current situation] just because in the test I was doing laps with different things on the bike and I was trying to understand everything, to have things for Qatar… this time I’m just focusing on doing laps and taking confidence, I feel better with the bike, and as a consequence with the tyres.
“But I don’t know if they’re better for us. For me with the old one we were faster than what we did today. But it’s okay for us if this is the situation. And he [Espargaro] was the fastest one in FP1, so… it’s difficult to say.”
