Espargaró ‘motivated by greatest rider in MotoGP’

Pol Espargaró is set for his second MotoGP season in Repsol Honda colours and thanks to the new RC213V, he is confident of a strong showing.

Having spent much of last year searching for rear grip, a radically updated Honda looks set to provide thanks to a two-year revolution to the engine, chassis and electronics.

“Sure it’s gonna help me,” Espargaró said from Tuesday’s 2022 launch. “The bike is a little bit more based on the rear which is something that I was looking for. Definitely, with this low grip on the rear I was struggling quite a lot. Honda discovered that also this was affecting quite a lot to the other riders. So they were trying to just be more on the line of the other bikes, trying to get more grip on the rear.

“We were having quite a lot of crashes by just not warming enough the tyre. So this means that our contact on the rear was too poor and finally this year, the bike is working much better on this aspect. Hopefully we are going to be faster but also safer, which also is important and this is going to help me also on my riding style, which is quite based on the rear and it’s going to be great.

“I try every winter to do something different, to approach the season in a different way,” he continued, on preparation for his ninth season in the premier class. “I’ve already been in the World Championship for many, many years and I try to do something different and new to try and make me feel ready and faster just at the beginning of testing in Malaysia.

“This winter has been like all the pre-seasons. Hard training physically quite a lot and I added some motocross training, some flat track and for sure some road bike riding - the CBR in different places, Jerez and Portimao. I try to do as many things as