Pol Espargaro says KTM can “think big” heading to next week's MotoGP season opener in Qatar, following a strong final pre-season test for the Austrian marque.
Espargaro was seventh quickest on the final day of the Qatar test and just 0.562 seconds off the pace of Yamaha's Maverick Vinales.
A permanent fixture of the top 10 on the timesheets across the three days, Espargaro says he was “impressed by the potential” of the 2019 RC16, and believes KTM can “have a good target” for the first race of its third premier class campaign next weekend.
“[I'm] impressed by the potential of our bike and what we have done here,” said Espargaro.
“It's normally a track where we've struggle a little in the last years. The first day I didn't expect to be there [in the top 10], then [we improved again] on the second day, happening exactly [the same] on Monday.
“But I'm quite impressed, we did a good job, good lap, good rhythm, the bike feels quite good. We are in the top 10, even a little bit better.”
He added: “In one week everything can change. The track conditions can change, we race a little bit early at 19:00 local time and a lot of things can happen.
“But what happened in this test is positive and we can think big and have a good target for the race.
“But we need to go slowly and take care of what we are doing, but what we are doing is good and we are doing a good job.”
Zarco 'too slow' still
Team-mate Johann Zarco was 22nd and 1.9s off the pace at the end of a tough Qatar test, with the Frenchman conceding he is still “too slow” and needs to change more on the bike “to find a new limit”.
When asked of his thoughts on the last day of testing, he said: “Final day, sad, because I had a crash, it was little bit cold and the medium tyre was not good any more for me and I crash.
“So I could not improve my performance, and this has been shame, because then it was a little bit difficult to make another step and keep working correctly.
“But I got more information and more experience to understand things. We maybe find the limit but we need to work more and change things to go fine a new limit.
“So, about the performance, I'm too slow at the moment on the final day, but the consistency I think I'm not so bad and I will see during the race weekend where I can be.”
