MotoGP
Espargaro battling lack of Honda MotoGP bike knowledge
Pol Espargaro has attributed his struggles in MotoGP qualifying sessions so far in 2021 to a lack of knowledge of his Honda bike.
Lewis Duncan
Edited: Jul 11, 2021, 9:23 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Espargaro has qualified in the top 10 on just two occasions from the first nine rounds of the season, limiting the Spaniard to a best race result of eighth at Le Mans.
That has left him 12th in the standings at the halfway point of the campaign, two places behind teammate Marc Marquez, who missed the opening two races due to his lingering injuries.
Espargaro has on a number of occasions shown strong pace in practice, but says he still struggles on a single-lap attack because he doesn’t fully understand the limits of the RC213V.
“What happens is that everyone knows how good their bike is and this is what happens,” Espargaro said when asked about his struggles in qualifying.
“When everyone pushes, it’s the moment where you need to get the maximum from your bike, but not making mistakes.
“With no pre-season, just racing on the race weekends, when I need to push to do one fast lap I crash or I go wide. This is a weakness of knowledge.
"It happened in this qualifying [at Assen], when I wanted to attack I did a mistake with the front tyre thinking it would be good, but actually it wasn’t good.
“This is knowledge for the future, when the same situation happens we are gonna put the medium front in [instead of the soft] and everything is going to be ok. But this was the problem. We make mistakes from a weakness of knowledge.”
Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Espargaro had just five days of testing on the Honda before the season started – all of them taking place in Qatar, where the first two rounds were also held.
Under normal circumstances, Espargaro would have had two days of running in November at Jerez, three at Sepang in February and another three in Qatar before the first round.
With such a limited pre-season in 2021, Espargaro admits he has missed out on valuable time to make mistakes on the bike.
“I’m missing making mistakes during the tests and not during a race weekend," he said. “It’s obvious I do a lot of mistakes during the weekends, this is due to the weakness of knowledge.
“That’s it, it’s a matter to understand the problems. Once you make the mistake you don’t repeat it, but you need to make the mistake.”
Read Also:
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Moto2 riders who turned down Aprilia MotoGP ride ‘won’t be happy'
Next article Quartararo: Replacing Rossi at Yamaha "huge responsibility"
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Lewis Duncan
MotoGP 2025: Full rider line-up revealed
MotoGP
MotoGP Sep 19, 2024
MotoGP 2025: Full rider line-up revealed
A year on from Marquez’s Germany MotoGP meltdown, has Honda improved?
MotoGP
MotoGP
German GP
Jul 5, 2024
A year on from Marquez’s Germany MotoGP meltdown, has Honda improved?
What’s behind MotoGP’s right-hander chaos in Germany practice?
MotoGP
MotoGP
German GP
Jul 5, 2024
What’s behind MotoGP’s right-hander chaos in Germany practice?
More from
Pol Espargaro
Pedro Acosta backed to win KTM’s home MotoGP race - “if there’s a place, it’s here”
MotoGP
MotoGP
Austrian GP
1 mo
Pedro Acosta backed to win KTM’s home MotoGP race - “if there’s a place, it’s here”
Tech3 confirms Pol Espargaro for Austrian GP as Vinales' replacement
MotoGP
MotoGP
Austrian GP
1 mo
Tech3 confirms Pol Espargaro for Austrian GP as Vinales' replacement
Pol Espargaro warns 'MotoGP riders not aware of the change coming with 2027 tyres'
MotoGP
MotoGP 2 mo
Pol Espargaro warns 'MotoGP riders not aware of the change coming with 2027 tyres'
More from
Honda HRC
With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds
MotoGP
MotoGP
Qatar GP
1 d
With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds
Carlos Ezpeleta: Qatar GP “noise” left MotoGP unnecessarily exposed
MotoGP
MotoGP
Qatar GP
4 d
Carlos Ezpeleta: Qatar GP “noise” left MotoGP unnecessarily exposed
Honda names Jake Dixon as Joan Mir's substitute for Qatar GP
MotoGP
MotoGP
Malaysian GP
8 d
Honda names Jake Dixon as Joan Mir's substitute for Qatar GP
Latest news
Sebastien Bourdais hopes latest WEC success will remind teams of his value
WEC
WEC WEC
Monza
1 h
Sebastien Bourdais hopes latest WEC success will remind teams of his value
"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
2 h
"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027
Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
3 h
Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe