MotoGP Austin: Espargaro ‘suffered but satisfied’ at worst track

Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro endured a tough weekend in Texas having claimed his first MotoGP victory just one week before.

Lining up 13th for the 20-lap race around the vast Circuit of the Americas, Espargaro ultimately met the flag in 11th, and behind teammate Maverick Viñales, after a challenging three days. Fifth during Saturday’s FP4 session was the highest the 32-year-old reached on the RS-GP, with the majority of the sessions seeing the Spaniard hover either side of the top ten break as he failed to find the sweet spot he had in Argentina.

“This is an example of how difficult the championship is, you know?” Espargaro said after the AmericasGP.

“Just a week ago I lead almost all sessions, I win, pole position, and this weekend has been completely different.

“This track is the worst for me and for the Aprilia. I suffer a lot this weekend. I try really everything during the weekend. I make a big effort trying to understand how to go fast, analysing the data of my teammate, seeing many, many videos but has been difficult.

“Anyway, sincerely I have to say I’m satisfied, because the level we show was much better than last year’s one. I achieve good points for the championship, because this championship is about regularity, to be able to be constant and we are third place in the championship.

“With just four races I achieve almost half of the points of last year, so I’m satisfied overall.

“You always have to be cool and try to understand the situation,” he continued. “Now, after the race obviously I’m not happy. I won last race and today I finished 11th so I can’t be happy at all. But when you feel good and when you try to look always just in the top three positions is normal that you feel disappointed after a race like this.