English
Italiano
Pol Espargarò has arrived in Austria with a very specific goal in mind, namely, to take that victory that he missed in Brno due to an accident that saw him as an innocent victim. Of course, the fault was not entirely on the other side, but the penalty inflicted on Zarco somehow showed that at least for the race direction, the Frenchman was more responsible for what happened. Pol did not hide his frustration for what happened and has accumulated enough competitive anger to vent on the track.
This is why he did not surprise the journalists today, when during the (virtual) meeting with them he confirmed that he was still quite nervous about what happened in Brno and completely determined to exploit this anger to obtain the result he already felt he deserved in Czech Republic and which instead his teammate, the deserving rookie Brad Binder, managed to achieve.
We can see that you are very focused, you almost seem angry. You don't smile, you look cold. Are you feeling a lot of pressure?
"I'm always focused, maybe today my face was a bit more angry than usual. But it depends on other things. I don't feel more pressure on me. One thing that happens every time we come to race here at the Red Bull Ring is that there are so many fans for us, while this time there is no one and this takes a lot of pressure off our shoulders. We have pressure on the team because expectations have risen, of course. We have always had good races here, but honestly, I don't feel pressure any more than usual. I want to do everything right, be in the front and I think I got off to a good start. I'll try to be angry for the rest of the weekend because it looks like this is working well. "
But where does all this anger come from?
"I am angry because last week I could not pick up the result that was within my reach. After a long time in this project, I have come very close to achieving the goal I set myself and not achieving it is painful. I feel angry about it, because I had the same speed as Brad in Brno and I couldn't get the result I deserved. For me it is better to crash at the beginning of the race, when the situation is still not clear, you don't know what potential you have. It's better this way, because if, for example, you have a duel at the end of the race and you lose it, that's fine. Because at least you have shown all your potential. Not showing anything is really painful, the worst thing that can happen in the race, especially because of the way it went".
You're referring to the incident with Zarco. But did you talk to him about it, did you clear things up?
"I don't want to talk about this, I don't want to answer. Sorry."
Then let's move on to the positive notes. You are first at the end of the first day…
"I feel good on the bike, it's nice to be here in Austria first at the end of the first day and this in a certain way confirmed to us that we are more or less at the level we expected. Then in the second session a bit of rain came. That is why we pushed to the limit in the first session, but in reality, in the first session everyone tries to understand the tyres well, the limits of the track. It's only the first day, there will be a lot to understand in the next sessions. We are not at the level of Ducati in terms of top speed. They are literally flying on the straight, especially because they have a lot of traction and they come out of the corners in an incredible way. Our engine performance is good, in Brno we did some tests on some new things with the engine braking, and it seems to work well. They seem to work very well when the tyres are very worn, so they will be useful in the race. "
You picked up your first podium with the KTM under the Valencia downpour in 2018. Maybe it will be the same for your first win…
"The bike has changed a lot since Valencia 2018, so I really have no idea how it will go in the rain. We were thinking about it yesterday with the engineers, thinking about the tyres. But it's difficult to predict something, we are at a different level. I spoke to Miguel who rode in the wet this afternoon and he told me that the bike is really good. It wasn't quite wet, but I can say that usually when you are fast in the dry, you can also be fast in the wet afterwards. If the bike doesn't work well in the dry, you have problems even when it rains. It's just talk though, we have to wait until tomorrow to see how things are going, if it rains on Sunday. "
What is Ducati's advantage over all the others on this track? Is it still the bike to beat?
"Here we talk a lot about power, traction. And the Ducati from this point of view is clearly ahead of us. They also make the anti-wheelie work very well, better than us. These are aspects on which we need to make further steps ".
