MotoGP Qatar: ‘Pleasure to fight with the best’ - Espargaro

It was almost a family fight for the Qatar GP podium on Sunday night as Aleix Espargaro proved just how far the Aprilia MotoGP project has come.

The elder brother eventually had to settle for fourth behind Pol’s Repsol Honda but having showcased speed, agility and confidence when fighting former champions Marc Marquez and Joan Mir during the 22-lap race, Espargaro is gearing up for the best season of his 20-year Grand Prix career.

“I’m not really disappointed,” he said of his podium near-miss. “I mean, yeah, I was looking for the podium.

“The thing is, the feeling that I had during today’s race is the first time in my life that I had it.

“I felt that I was the strong one on terms of pace, but I was maybe too conservative with the laps that I did behind Marc and Mir. I never expect that they will drop the pace like this so I lose almost a full second with Joan and then almost a full second with Marc. But anyway, I was able to do the fast lap and then catch the group but always was a little bit late, too late, too late, and then I was missing one more lap to catch my brother.

“Races are like this,” Espargaro continued. “Is good enough to be the first race but the most important is the speed we did. I did many laps in 54-half which is amazing. We show that the level of today has been amazing, the race has been very, very, very fast and I’m very glad to say that I’ve been one of the strongest ones there. We are P4 in the championship so overall, this weekend in Qatar has been good to me.”

With Aprilia enjoying a raft of testing opportunities as the only brand left with concessions, there is more to come from the Noale squad, but the progress so far is clear to see.

“We were seeing many videos of last year on Thursday with