Aleix Espargaro admits Aprilia Racing is not good enough to seriously fight for this year’s MotoGP championship title.
Espargaro remains third in the riders’ standings but his chances of lifting the trophy at Valencia next month took a hit when he struggled to ninth at Phillip Island.
He is now 27 points behind new championship leader Francesco Bagnaia with just two races to go in 2022 and hence only another 50 points on offer.
The result in Australia continues a poor run since a podium finish at Aragon, with a non-score at Motegi when his team accidentally left his bike in eco mode for race start, and an 11th at Buriram after an early long lap penalty.
Even then, he had only been 10th when he made the contact with Brad Binder which drew the penalty, after qualifying 13th.
It means the Catalan has only scored 12 points out of a possible 75 in the last three races, although Bagnaia’s return in the same period has been a somewhat modest 32 points and former championship leader Fabio Quartararo has collected just eight during the Asia-Pacific flyaways thus far.
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“I think that on the last three races we proved that we are not together as a team,” said Espargaro.
“We are not at the level to fight for this title.
“We actually conceded many, many points, because at the end in the last three races we did eight or 10 points [actually five in Thailand, seven in Australia], which is ridiculous if you want to fight for the title. This is the problem.
“I mean, we made many mistakes on the last three races. You guys know it.
“And it’s a shame on Sunday again. I don’t know what was going on in the last laps.
“I think Maverick [Viñales, team-mate] had exactly the same problem as me.”
The problem this time, according to Aprilia’s ‘Captain’ was a traction control issue.
“I was fast – I did the second-fastest lap of the race – but in the last eight laps, the bike didn’t accelerate,” he recounted.
“I had a lot of traction control; the bike was cutting a lot of power for some reason and didn’t go forward.
“I changed the maps, I tried everything, but it was very frustrating because there was nothing I could do.”
Espargaro added, “With the [data] from Michelin, I think I was the second[-best] rider for the least tyre [consumption] in FP4.
“I tried from the beginning of the race to save some tyre, braking more aggressive to use more the front, but I don’t know what happened at the end.
“I was very, very angry, frustrated because I had the speed to fight for victory.
“The race at the beginning was quite slow. It was quite easy for me to stay in the group.
“But then in the last part, the others dropped four, five tenths and we dropped maybe 1.2, 1.3s.
“I was very angry inside of the helmet because there was nothing I could do.”
Round 19 takes place at Malaysia’s Sepang, with practice kicking off this Friday.
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