From Mugello to the Red Bull Ring: Pol Espargaró arrived in Austria to contest his second wildcard of the season. An appearance with a purpose and preparation very different from those of the outing in Tuscany of the KTM test rider, who had appeared rather nervous at the idea of getting on the RC16.
“A lot has changed since then, considerably. I hadn’t ridden a bike in Mugello for a month and I hadn’t raced there for a year, as I hadn’t 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,” explained the Catalan on Thursday in Spielberg.
“It’s all different now. We’ve had four days of testing here, I’m used to riding this bike as I’ve done 350 laps here. The times in testing were good and it seems like the bike is promising in some areas, both now and for the future. This is a track where I feel very comfortable riding, so the whole scenario is very different to Mugello,” he continued. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to go looking for a result tomorrow. My goal is to enjoy the weekend and to be performing well with the bike we’re using, which is different to Brad and Jack’s, to see the differences between me and the factory riders, to understand where they are fast and where I am, to be more productive.”
How will the MotoGP brought to the track by Polyccio be different?
“You will see tomorrow. There will be some aspects that you will see clearly with your own eyes, although I have to tell you that the most important things will be those that you will not see,” replied the 33-year-old. “In any case, whether the development is thought for now or for the future, it is important because the results are not coming as we would all like. However, KTM has taken a path, which we have now changed slightly, and in my opinion the test team is working well and it will be very useful if we can demonstrate it this weekend.”
Without wanting to go into too much detail, the youngest of the Espargaró brothers then explained the genesis of this new version of the RC16.
“The factory changed some of the working methods after some people left. Other people took over other things. And that change has led to this bike, which as I said has some visible changes and some that are not and that overall is performing well,” he said. “Even though it performed well in the tests and I feel it is a little bit faster, it is really difficult to say if it is faster than the current one. You have to test it on a race weekend and that is what we are 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 forward as possible, but for the Spaniard this is not exactly the case.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m chasing the result and from tomorrow I’ll go full throttle to try to win the race, but the fact is that it won’t be possible, because my level at the moment is not even Top 5 – Pol admitted – In any case it doesn’t matter, because it’s not our goal. Any rider tries to be the fastest in a weekend, every time you look at the times you want to be at the top of the list, and being there in front would mean that we are doing a good job. Even if we weren’t, however, that wouldn’t mean that it was useless to come. Our job is not to get on the podium. Being in those positions is not our job, but Jack, Brad, Pedro and Augusto’s”.
Regardless of the results, there will still be a lot of pressure inside the KTM box at this home round.
“Of course. That’s why we are racing. Otherwise we would have just continued with the test program,” commented the test driver. “We are here because we want to demonstrate that we are performing and show the world that our test team works well. That’s why Dani does so well when he races. Every time he goes well he provides good material for the future, whether short or long term. We will try tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and Sunday.”
