MotoGP Mandalika Test: Espargaro anticipating difficult year, ‘level is unbelievable’

Aprilia’s rise up the MotoGP standings continued as Aleix Espargaro claimed another top three finish on Sunday at Mandalika.

2022’s preseason testing concluded with both RS-GPs inside the combined top ten as Maverick Viñales claimed eighth, less then a tenth behind Espargaro’s 1’31.385 fastest which sat fourth overall thanks to Luca Marini’s impressive Saturday offering.

With progress from the Noale factory clear to see, what is the team captain expecting from the year ahead?

“It’s difficult to give you a clear answer because I’m always very ambitious, maybe too much,” Espargaro admitted from Indonesia. “I can do a very good championship, finish in top six and I will not be happy enough, but it is part of life, part of sport. I think the important thing is to be satisfied with the job and the work you have done and the thing to be satisfied will be to improve the championship of last year. This will be very important.

“Last year we finish eighth in the championship so if this year we are able to be close or even to score more points than 200 and to be able to stay inside the top six in the championship, I think will be a realistic good championship.

“You cannot finish eighth and the next year win the championship, this is very, very difficult, even if obviously this is what I want. It’s very, very difficult but we are working very hard. We are not super, super happy about our preseason. Is just one more preseason [test] we know that this is not racing, but we are doing good. The new bike works good since the first laps that Lorenzo [Savadori] did in Malaysia, so overall we are happy.

“Last year we achieve the first podium so obviously we’re going to try to win but it’s very difficult,” he said of his aim to put the