Pol Espargaro says he achieved his main target of enjoying his racing again at Silverstone, despite running into tyre problems that ultimately curtailed his rostrum challenge.
The Honda racer charged to his first Honda pole on Saturday having impressed with his speed across practice, the gripper nature of the Silverstone venue twinned with cooler temperatures giving him a much improved feeling with the RC213-V, the Spaniard having struggled so far in his maiden campaign with the Japanese manufacturer with a best of eighth prior to the British Grand Prix.
He made a strong start and led the early laps before being relegated to second by Fabio Quartararo on the fifth tour, and despite running well in the battle for the podium alongside Aleix and Suzuki’s Alex Rins ultimately began to suffer from extreme tyre-wear around mid-distance and dropped back to his eventual finishing position of fifth by the end of the encounter.
Despite not being able to convert pole into a first podium for Honda, Espargaro insisted he was satisfied with his weekend overall due to it being a “long time since I was in that situation” of fighting towards the front, admitting the fact he had to run the soft compound rear tyre led to it “giving up” half-way through the contest.
“It was not too bad, I actually enjoyed a lot of the race and this is what I was looking for after struggling so much (in 2021),” said Espargaro.
“To be leading the race was something special, for sure we had to go with the soft rear and front like the other Honda’s because for us the medium rear was impossible to ride.
“This means everything isn’t ideal to be fighting for the podium, but until the middle of the race when I still had the full performance of the tyre I was there and enjoying so much.
“I was even catching Alex (Rins) and Aleix (Espargaro) in some stages of the race, but then the right side of my rear tyre gave up and then I was just trying to manage the gap to the guy behind which was five seconds, but I enjoyed it which was the main target this weekend.
“I would sign to have the results of this weekend every weekend with the pole position and fighting for the podium for a lot of the race, that was something special as it’s been a long time since I was in that situation.”
Espargaro added his congratulations to brother Aleix after he secured the first rostrum for Aprilia in the MotoGP era, the 2013 Moto2 world champion saying he could symopatise with his sibling’s tribulations with the Italian marque having lived the same highs and lows while developing KTM’s RC16 prior to switching to Honda for this season.
“I was thinking during the race that it’s quite rare to see two brothers fighting for the podium in a MotoGP race, this kind of thing never happens and its very nice and I’m very proud of him (Aleix) as a brother,” continued Espargaro.
“I’ve been in that situation with KTM by developing the bike and having that on your shoulders, Aleix has been fighting and training a lot to get there (podium) and finally he got it so he should be super proud and I’m very happy for him and Aprilia.
“Now we go to Aragon where last year where Honda were competitive, so we will try to repeat this weekend and enjoy it.”
