Pol Espargaro may be riding solo in Repsol Honda this weekend but he is doing so from the top of the Valencia GP timesheets.

Second in the overall standings after Friday’s two mixed practices - with FP1 wet and FP2 mostly dry - Espargaro’s 1’30.939 fastest lap placed him squarely between the two Ducati Lenovo machines. Six-hundredths-of-a-second covering the trio at the top after 90 minutes of action at Ricardo Tormo.

The Catalan completed the day openly angry after a turn six crash on his final lap, having briefly held the top spot and hoping to improve once again.

“First of all, sure, I'm happy with the day,” he explained from the Valencia paddock. "The morning was tricky so I didn't took so much risk but in the afternoon, I want to just try to prove a little bit myself how I could manage this weekend and it was pretty good. I'm happy.

“The only problem is I was asking too much. I knew I had one problem in the front in some corners and I over push and I crash. That's why I was angry. I was angry with myself. Not actually with the team or the bike.

“Sure, as the first day there is problems always. You have problems on the bike that needs to improve. The thing is that I knew that I could crash if I was over pushing in some places and I over push and I crashed, that's why I was angry with myself because I could avoid, in a day that was very good. So that crash was for nothing.

“I think my weakest part is the T4,” he continued, analysing the day. “T2 is one of my stronger points. In the right corners, I was risking a little bit more maybe on the right, even if the temperature was not there and I was taking quite a lot of advantage. T1, still the first corner was wet, so I think I have some margin there to be faster but I had some problems in the front tyre.

“I think we will be able to use a hard when the track is going to improve. Maybe this morning, it would be a little bit better but also it was a little bit more risky in the right so I think we did right to keep the front tyre the medium one but I think also with the hard tyre, maybe we could avoid the crash.

“Overall we are doing a good job. I just want to continue the same job tomorrow. The bike didn't damage so much so I'm not worried about it and the confidence is high so we will see what tomorrow brings.”