Takaaki Nakagami says he is “ready” to convert a maiden MotoGP pole position into a first victory in the Alcaniz Grand Prix at Aragon on Sunday.
The LCR Honda racer became the first Japanese rider to claim a premier class pole since Makoto Tamada achieved the feat 16 years ago for the 2004 Portuguese GP.
Nakagami led the way in FP2 on Friday while adding a pair of second place finishes in both FP1 and FP3 to boot, leaving him as favourite heading into the second 23 lap encounter at the Motorland Aragon venue.
Despite facing stiff competition from Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli and last weekend’s Aragon GP victor Alex Rins, Nakagami reckons he “has the pace” to claim a debut success, though accepted his fellow front row men will “try to destroy my strategy”.
“My feeling on the bike is so good, right from FP1 we have had great performance this weekend so far so hopefully we can keep this up tomorrow,” said Nakagami.
“We have the pace, we showed throughout practice on the soft compound tyre that we have good pace so I just need to be calm and try and get a good start, of course Franco Morbidelli and Alex Rins will try to destroy my strategy but this is the most important thing.
“Hopefully I can get a gap at the beginning, and then I have good pace later on so I can manage it, but this is just dreaming so hopefully they are not faster than me, but I am ready for another great day tomorrow.”
Nakagami revealed that he didn’t know if he’d done enough to clinch pole due to the lack of TV screens around the circuit as a result of the event being held behind closed doors, only finding out after spotting his team standing behind the first place board when pulling into parc ferme.
“The lap wasn’t perfect, because I saw on my bike display that I was 0.1 down on my previous best so I pushed harder through the next sectors and saw the time get better and better, then when I crossed the line I saw that it was under a 1:47,” explained Nakagami.
“It was a nice feeling, but at that moment I didn’t know if it was enough for pole position as there was no monitor or TV on the track, so I was hoping it would be enough for pole but at the same time it could be second or third row because the lap-time (difference between rivals) is so tight.
“I only saw I had it when I saw my team standing in the one spot in parc ferme, but it was an amazing feeling.”
