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“It’s a shame that Pecco and Fabio did a 1-2, but on my side, with this bike here today, I’m happy.”
Aleix Espargaro lost serious ground to his two main MotoGP championship rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo at the Red Bull Ring – which is why it was slightly surprising to hear him be fairly sanguine after the race on Sunday.
It was perhaps even more surprising to learn he’d felt his ride to sixth place was one of his best in a breakout 2022 – putting it in the same kind of boat as his maiden win in Argentina or his barn-burner charge from the back at Assen.
“I did, sincerely, one of the best races of the season so far. Because I didn’t have the pace of Pecco, Fabio, and until lap 15 or 20 I was with them, I did many [1m]29s [laps], I was riding over the limit every corner, I made zero mistakes.”
Making race day just that bit more difficult right from the off! 😑@AleixEspargaro couldn't get his front holeshot device engaged on the line 🛑#AustrianGP 🇦🇹 pic.twitter.com/uKi8vjqScj
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) August 21, 2022
Espargaro’s race was made complicated right off the bat by the fact he couldn’t get his holeshot device to engage on the grid, meaning his start was frankly woeful – having lined up ninth, he was effectively 14th, albeit on the favourable inside line, into Turn 1.
“I was very angry I couldn’t engage [the start device], and I lost a lot of ground – without this system, the power delivery and everything is wrong.
“And then I knew I had the soft [rear tyre] so I pushed like hell.”
Marginally ahead of him on Turn 1 entry, rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio went wide and took Takaaki Nakagami off the optimal line, too. Espargaro then passed Brad Binder, boxed in behind Johann Zarco out of Turn 1, and then launched it around the outside of not just Zarco but also Suzuki’s Alex Rins into the new chicane.
The move on Zarco, but not Rins, stuck. Up ahead, Joan Mir had his brutal crash. Then Espargaro took care of business with Rins through Turn 9, and then launched a late-braking prayer of a move down the inside of VR46 Ducati’s Luca Marini into Turn 1.
Therefore, in just a lap, the damage from the poor start was not just undone but overcome. Which is why Espargaro would ultimately concede the start issue cost him “nothing” – because from there on the pace wasn’t really there.
“We had some problems with the system this weekend. It never happened anything this season [before], but I had a problem – I don’t know if Friday or Saturday – and again today. We are trying many things, developing many things, different systems, so unfortunately it didn’t work today.
“But at the end I was lucky because I did very very good two first laps, I overtook a lot. And I didn’t have the pace to fight for the victory, but this can cost you a race.”
After that first lap, Espargaro even briefly looked like threatening Quartararo up ahead – but their races went in opposite directions after that.
The Aprilia never looked particularly comfortable in the Spaniard’s hands all weekend, especially in that new chicane, and Espargaro admitted after the race he “tried everything” to make the RS-GP more compliant.
“I moved the weight quite a lot during the weekend, I made the bike longer, a lot lower, I tried everything – but this bike doesn’t like the apex.
“I braked like an animal all race, sincerely, I don’t know why I didn’t make any mistakes. But at the end you destroy the tyre.
“If you are too fast, too quick, and you rush the entry of the corner, you accelerate with more lean than them and you destroy the tyre. This is what happened.”
Espargaro wound up the highest-placed of the soft rear runners. Team-mate Maverick Vinales, who ran up ahead early on but dropped behind Espargaro with a Turn 4 error and only continued to fade from there, had also chosen the soft rear and felt that was his undoing – but on Espargaro’s side there were other culprits.
The special harder-casing tyres brought to the Red Bull Ring by Michelin to cope with its acceleration demands were one, with Espargaro acknowledging he would’ve fared better on the usual tyres – but it was the layout that he pinpointed as the bigger factor.
“On the second and third part of the circuit, especially the last part, the bike was extremely fast. But on the first part of the circuit, nothing I could do,” he explained, having pinpointed straight-line braking as the Aprilia’s biggest deficiency, which the Red Bull Ring was exposing.
But the lacking pace was not enough to make the result a total disaster. Once up to fifth following Enea Bastianini’s front wheel failure and Vinales’ mistake, Espargaro found himself in a losing battle against the chasing Ducatis of Marini and Zarco.
But he stemmed the tide in fighting off Rins and a feisty Binder at the very end, and was gifted another position by the Turn 1 failure of Jorge Martin’s podium bid.
“Sincerely, I’m very proud about the race we did. ”
It was very much the kind of grand prix where you could very easily choose to make a glass half-empty or a glass half-full appraisal.
In Espargaro’s case, with seven more races to do and a now 32-point gap to Quartararo, there’s still time to justify keeping that glass half full – but only just.
