In Misano, Zarco takes advantage of the crashes and Espargaro makes the most of the KTM
Johann Zarco erases the disappointment of his fault during the GP of Great Britain with the 11th place at the GP of San Marino. Lucid, the Cannes driver admits having taken advantage of the falls in front of him, while his teammate Pol Espargaro fell from second place on the grid to 7th position…. MNC Statements and Analysis.
Intense weekend for KTM in Misano, which first of all recorded its best qualifying with the splendid second place snatched by Pol Espargaro on this yet demanding track! The Orange brand had never reached this rank in 51 MotoGP participations.
- GP of San Marino :
- GP of San Marino :
- MNC special file :
Johann Zarco is not to be outdone with the 8th fastest time in the qualifying session, half a second behind his Spanish teammate. This encouraging performance is unfortunately not savored, since the Frenchman is forced to fall three places for having led Oliveira in his .
The first part of the San Marino GP will continue to smile at Espargaro, but not at Zarco: while the No.44 offers fierce resistance to Rossi, Rins, Morbidelli and Dovizioso, the No.5 comes out of the points in the first laps. The cause ? Johann’s lack of confidence with his medium rear tire, which he crashed with in the morning during warm-up !
"It took me six laps before I felt comfortable with the midrange. But it’s always better to have more consistency at the end than to have a better feeling at the start and then lose the rhythm. ", explains the French pilot who has learned the lesson of his previous attempts to start with a" soft "tire in order to delude a few laps on his RC16…
Six falls in front of Zarco !
The future ex-KTM pilot – who is continuing his efforts to be a test pilot in 2020 – has "little by little" found enough good feelings to come back to the pilots in front of him, then to begin to overtake them. The fall of his rivals – at a greater or lesser distance – will greatly simplify the task. !
“When I was ready to overtake, the drivers in front of me fell!” Laughs Johann, who admits having “taken advantage of this advantage to gain positions”. Six drivers actually started to make mistakes before his KTM: Franco Bagnaia, Alex Rins, Michele Pirro, Cal Crutchlow, Miguel Oliveira and Takaaki Nakagami.
The last two bravely left and finished respectively 16th for the KTM Tech3 rider and 18th for the Honda-LCR team resident. For his part, Johann Zarco saw the horizon emerge from half a dozen positions in 45 minutes of racing. !
"I couldn’t finish at Silverstone, so I’m happy to see the checkered flag here", appreciates the Frenchman who is still 32.388 sec behind the winner, more than a second in the lap…
Orange half full or half pressed ?!
His team-mate Pol Espargaro may well be delighted to have "fought in the Top 6 or 7", his gap on the head of the race is also considerable: "Polito" crossed the finish line 20.050 sec later than Marc Marquez.
This significant delay shows the extent of the progress still to be made by KTM, which prefers to mark the 7th finish in the Top 10 of Espargaro this season. In other words: KTM positivises by describing the Orange as half full rather than half in a hurry !
"It was an excellent weekend of which we can be very proud," said Pol Espargaro, who is standing up to many of his rivals in acceleration and braking. But the Spanish pilot loses time entering a curve and passing speed, recurring weaknesses of the RC16.
"I was losing a lot in turns 3, 8 and 10 against Dovizioso and in the 11 against Morbidelli," he explained. "It wasn’t a lot, only two tenths per lap, but in the end it makes a difference. But when you finish a race with such a good feeling, you just want to start over right away!"
Pol Espargaro’s request will be met from next Sunday as the MotoGP set sail for the Spanish circuit of Alcaniz to compete in the GP of Aragon, the 14th event in the 2019 program..
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