MotoGP Le Mans: Espargaro targeting starts with carbon clutch

Aleix Espargaro is as confident as ever heading into Le Mans after Aprilia introduced a carbon clutch for the French GP

Sitting second in the MotoGP standings after six races, Espargaro’s season is going from strength to strength as he establishes himself as a bonafide championship challenger on the RS-GP.

“The first part of the season has been great,” Espargaro reflected on his stellar 2022 from the French paddock. “I’ve been enjoying a lot riding the bike and obviously the potential of the bike this year is clearly better than in the past years.

“We are just seven points behind Fabio [Quartararo]. It’s difficult to predict how the bike will work here because, especially the last seasons, has been quite strange regarding the weather condition so we don’t have a lot of information. But so far the bike has been quite competitive every single track so I will try to work hard from FP1 to prepare the bike as best as possible and let’s see how is Sunday.”

Despite standing on the podium in three of the past six races, once on the top step, and crossed the line narrowly adrift in the opening battle at Qatar, the RS-GP has struggled off the start line. An ominous prospect for his rivals if Espargaro and the Noale factory can fix the missing link in his otherwise faultless performance, something they were working on at the Jerez test immediately following the Spanish GP.

“Lorenzo Savadori was riding the last two races as a wildcard with our bike with a lot of different things,” the Spaniard explained. “We try a lot of new things on Monday. A couple of new things I will use in Mugello, but the clutch, I will use a carbon clutch for the first time during this weekend.

“Is quite a good improvement, lighter and better for the start.