From Mugello to the Red Bull Ring: Pol Espargaró has arrived in Austria to contest his second wildcard of the season. It is an appearance with a very different purpose and preparation from the KTM test rider's outing in Tuscany, when he had appeared quite nervous about riding the RC16.
"A lot has changed since then, considerably. At Mugello it had been a month since I had ridden the bike and it had been a year since I had raced on that track, since I had not raced there last year because I was injured. The bike was completely new and I hadn't had time to test it, apart from one day in Jerez, so I wasn't there for performance but to find out what would happen," the Catalan explained on this Thursday in Spielberg.
"Everything is different now. We did four days of testing here, I'm used to riding this bike since I did 350 laps on it here. The times in the tests were good and it seems that the bike is promising in some areas, both now and for the future. This is a track where I feel very comfortable racing, so the whole scenario is very different from Mugello," he continued, "That doesn't mean I'm going after the result tomorrow. My goal is to enjoy the weekend and to be performing with the bike we are using, which is different from Brad and Jack's, to see the differences between me and the factory riders, to understand where they are fast and where I am, so we can be more productive."
How will the MotoGP bike brought to the track by Polyccio differ?
"You will see tomorrow. There will be aspects that you will clearly see with your own eyes, although I have to tell you that the most important things will be those that you won't see," the 33-year-old replied. "In any case, whether the development is designed for now or for the future, it is important because the results are not coming in the way we all would like. However, KTM has taken a path, which we have now slightly changed, and in my opinion the test team is working well and it will be very useful if we can prove it this weekend."
While not wanting to go into too much detail, the younger of the Espargaró brothers then explained the genesis of this new version of the RC16.
"The factory changed some working methodology after some people left. Other figures took over other things. And this change has led to this bike, which as I said has some visible changes and some that are not and overall is performing well," he said, "Although it has performed well in testing and I feel that it is a little bit faster, it is really hard to say if it is faster than the current one. You have to test it on a race weekend and that's what we're doing here: fielding both bikes with different riders. If I am close to them or faster it will mean that the bike is good enough to be optimistic for the future."
It should therefore be essential to try to stay as far ahead as possible, but for the Spaniard that is not quite the case.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm going for the result and from tomorrow I'm going to go full throttle to try to win the race, but the fact is that it won't be possible, because my level right now is not even Top 5 - Pol admitted - In any case it doesn't matter, because that's not our goal. Any rider in a weekend tries to be the fastest, every time you look at the times you want to be at the top of the list, and being up there in front would mean we are doing a good job. Even if we weren't, though, that wouldn't mean it was pointless to come. Our job is not to be on the podium. Being in those positions is not our job, but Jack, Brad, Pedro and Augusto's."
Irrespective of the results, there will still be a lot of pressure inside the KTM box at this home Round.
"Certainly. That's why we are in the race. Otherwise we would have just continued with the test program," commented the test rider. "We are here because we want to prove that we are performing and show the world that our test team is working well. That's why Dani does so well when he races. Every time it goes well it provides good material for the future, whether it's short or long term. We will try tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and Sunday."
Beyond the results, there will still be great pressure inside the KTM box in this home Round. Then Pol also talked about Fabiano Sterlacchini's rumored farewell.
“Fabiano is an intelligent and very competent person. In Honda they need a person like that, because he is a leader inside the factory with the engineers. This is what Honda needs, a European to lead the group. Sterlacchini is organizer-he is very good at designing the processes and protocols that you have to put in place to develop components and development.” Recall he raced with HRC in 2021 and 2022 as Marc Marquez's teammate.
Sterlacchini in KTM is not the same as in Honda,” Pole added, “KTM already had a working method and he changed it by replacing it with his own, but things did not go the way we hoped. Even though he is technically competent, it didn't work for us. But Honda is not in our situation and I think he can abdare well with them.”
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)