Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro says he’s happy with the “solid” start that he and the team made to the 2021 MotoGP season at Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix, despite not quite living up to their pre-race potential and coming home in seventh.
Aprilia looked like a whole new team during winter testing at the track as it finally came to terms with the radically different RS-GP introduced 12 months ago. Espargaro had shown pace good enough to fight for the podium in four days of testing at the track.
Despite not quite living up to that expectation when the lights went out on Sunday, Espargaro is nonetheless pleased with not only what he and Aprilia achieved but with what they learned from their first time racing the new machine.
“It was a solid race and we showed that the pre-season wasn’t a joke,” said Espargaro.
“We’re better than ever and we’re able to fight with the top riders. Unfortunately, we still have to learn a lot of things, and especially at the start of the race with a full tank of fuel I suffered a little bit and lost quite a lot of ground.
“In mid-race, I was able to overtake a couple of riders and arrive with Mir to the main group. But in the end, I had no more front tyre.
“The general feeling is ok and we’ll be more ready for the next race.
“In another year, with the improvement that we had today, I would have pushed more, tried to finish in the top five.
“But it’s only the first race and it’s easy to make a mistake that way, and this year it’s important to score points in every race. I think it’s a good beginning.”
Espargaro is reassured by the fact he knows the reason for not being quite as fast as hoped for, as the bike was particularly affected by the high winds that hit Sunday’s race.
The team was forced to extensively rework the RS-GP’s aerodynamics package for 2021 to maximize downforce, which helped cure its acceleration woes – but came at a cost.
“I don’t want to say because it sounds like an excuse but the wind was a big problem,” Espargaro said.
“The new bike is very good, has very high stability, and we’ve improved the acceleration a lot due to the downforce, but already in the warm-up with the wind, I suffered a lot.
“In turns 7, 8 and 9 I was the third-quickest in qualifying but in the race I was losing a lot of ground – I wasn’t competitive at all. It was very difficult for me to put the bike into the corners, and hopefully the next race will be a lot less windy.”
While he might have been hoping for a little more, there was plenty to be positive about from what Aprilia did achieve.
While it was not Aprilia’s best ever finishing place, Espargaro coming home only six seconds from race winner Maverick Viñales means that it’s the smallest ever gap to the victor since the squad returned to MotoGP in 2015.
“The first thing that I can say is that I have a big smile,” Espargaro said when asking about the gap to the leader.
“Because when someone is asking me how I felt in the big pack, it means we were in the leading group. For the first time, we can say we fought in the victors’ group until the last three laps when I lost a lot of time overtaking Miller.
“Overall I feel good. The bike has good potential on the brakes and also in acceleration.
“Unfortunately, I suffered more than I expected in fifth and sixth gear – I know that I lose a lot of speed when I’m alone but I thought that in the draft I would be able to stay closer to the bikes in front.
“It wasn’t like that, and I lost a lot of time in the straights and this is something we have to improve.
“But this bike is competitive. I did all the race with no problems, the electronics worked quite good, the fuel and tyre consumption were quite good. It’s just a good start.”
What makes it even more impressive is that Espargaro was essentially a one-man team throughout pre-season testing and the opening race weekend, as team-mate Lorenzo Savadori continues to both learn the ways of MotoGP and to recover from a niggling shoulder injury.
With Savadori having ended the race dead last and further from second-last man Franco Morbidelli (himself riding around a mechanical problem on his Petronas Yamaha) than Morbidelli was from the win, it was a performance that is unfortunately sure to intensify Aprilia’s goal of replacing the reigning Italian Superbike champion with Andrea Dovizioso as soon as possible.
