Pol Espargaro: I was hammering the front, a disaster race

Pol Espargaro's COTA MotoGP weekend went downhill after a promising Friday.

07 Oct 2021

Pol Espargaro MotoGP race, Grand Prix Of The Americas, 3 October 2021
© Gold and Goose Photography

While Marc Marquez romped to his and Honda's second victory of the season at the Americas MotoGP, team-mate Pol Espargaro could only manage tenth place, 20-seconds adrift.

Espargaro had been a promising fourth after Friday practice but his pace was then limited by front-end problems, which continued into the race.

Starting twelfth, Espargaro made early progress to ninth before tyre graining kicked-in.

"We started the weekend very good. On Friday afternoon, the pace was nice. But then we started to feel problems with the front," he explained.

"After the crash I lost the front confidence and our bike, well my bike, was pushing quite a lot to the front tyre, more than it should during the race.

"I was hammering the front in the first laps, and after 6-7 laps I started to feel the graining in the front and couldn't really turn as fast as I wished. I started to struggle a lot, and then I was just cruising.

"Ten laps to the end, I couldn't push the front and I wasn't turning and I could just brake late and that's it. I had not so many weapons to fight with, and it was a disaster race."

A best of fifth place during his debut Repsol Honda season so far, Espargaro will return to Europe for the final three rounds just 15th in the world championship standings, sandwiched between LCR Honda riders Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez.