Pol Espargaro thinks his chances for victory in the Austrian grand prix collapsed after running out of fresh medium tyres for the restart following the red flag period.
The KTM racer looked to be one of the men to beat during the dry parts of the weekend, heading FP1 and topping the combined times heading into qualifying as his first practice effort remained unbeaten in FP3.
Hopes were high despite only managing fifth on the grid as Espargaro had displayed impressive race pace during practice, perfectly setting up the Austrian marque for a potential home win.
Espargaro duly delivered on this promise early on in the contest as he carved his way into the lead at around a thirds distance, before setting a string of fastest laps to gap the pursuing Ducati and Suzuki machines behind.
His hopes for victory were then dashed due to the red flag stoppage thrown to clean up debris from a horrific crash between Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli, Espargaro forced to run a new soft once the race restarted as he and KTM had used up all of their new medium compound rubber.
Despite holding the lead as the race wound back up, Espargaro quickly started to drop back as his RC16 started to run out of grip and was running fifth when he collided with Tech 3’s Miguel Oliveira at Turn 4 after running wide-the pair crashing out of the race.
Espargaro laid the blame for his lack of post-red flag speed firmly at the door of the soft rear tyre, ruing his and KTM’s tyre usage strategy over the weekend.
“It is a shame because in the first part of the race we were so strong, I was leading the race and starting to pull away from Dovi (Andrea Dovizioso) and I was riding so smooth and so nice that it’s painful (to retire),” said Espargaro.
“We had to put on a soft tyre (following red flag) which wasn’t the best for our bike, we used a medium in the first part and we ran out of new mediums so the problem was with our strategy we didn’t have a backup as we didn’t expect the red flag.
“We had everything to win but again something happened, as I said during the weekend we should keep one medium just in case of a red flag, normally it never happens but if it does at least you have a fresh backup tyre you can put in.
“The only one we had was a soft, and we use that just for the time attack which is only three laps and we had zero data from it, so I knew I was out and that’s why I was angry coming into the pits because I knew my race was over.”
KTM duo agree on “racing incident” verdict
Oliveira meanwhile said he was “sad” about the way his and Espargaro’s races had ended, but took the stance that the crash that eliminated both from the Austrian encounter was purely a racing incident.
“I’m really sad about the end of the race today, for sure it was not the way I wanted to end this GP and especially touching Pol (Espargaro), it was a very sad incident,” explained Oliveira following the race.
“Pol had run wide already a few laps, Turn 4 is a very tough corner to get right if you don’t have grip on the rear and Pol went wide, and when a rider goes wide I see an opportunity to pass which is the same for every rider.
“It’s a basic rule of competition, when I went for the gap he came back on track and to the line I was already on and we both clashed with each other and we both crashed.”
Espargaro agreed with his fellow KTM pilot that the pairs clash was nothing more than hard racing, but believed that Oliveira running slightly wider through the bend than usual was a factor in the pair making contact.
“I agree with Miguel (Oliveira) that it was a racing incident, we both went a little bit wide, he was wider than usual as well and I couldn’t see him, we were both going very fast and we collided,” said Espargaro.
“This is something that can happen while racing.”
