Aleix Espargaro’s dominance of proceedings at Qatar’s MotoGP opening round came to an abrupt end in qualifying yesterday when two crashes in final qualifying saw him limp to ninth on the grid for today’s race.
The young Spaniard, who is riding a 2012 Yamaha M1 in Open class guise, had topped all the timesheets going into the final session but lost the front twice when it really mattered and now has a huge scrap on his hands to realise his podium potential.
“Qualifying was a disaster. After FP4 I was confident that the hard tyre was really good, the pace was good but as soon we put the soft rear, the front feel like it was floating a little bit and not enough grip, said Espargaro, speaking at Qatar.
“I took the second bike, and it’s not the best feeling with the second bike that I didn’t use all weekend, but even like this I was down to pole in the last sector but again I make a mistake and crash. Tomorrow will be fun, we need to overtake a lot of riders and I will push.”
