Aprilia's owner told that he put on the race tire on the grid and noticed the problem on the warm-up lap. Catalão evaluated that there was no point in putting the tire on in the pits, since there were no new tires in stock.
Aleix Espargaró stated that he had a defective tire at the German GP on Sunday (19). The Aprilia rider explained that the front shoe caused the RS-GP to present many vibrations in the front, which left him with a race pace similar to that of Moto2.
Vice-leader of the championship, Aleix started in fourth place and throughout practice had shown a good enough pace to fight with Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia for the victory at Sachsenring. Throughout the race, however, this was far from being the case.
MOTOGP STANDINGS
▶️ Quartararo wins 3rd and extends MotoGP 2022 lead
Pol's brother spent most of the 30 laps in contention for the podium, but ended up taking the flag only fourth, 9s113 behind Quartararo, after losing the last place in the top-3 to Jack Miller because of a braking mistake.
"From the moment I changed the front tire on the grid and started the formation lap, I started to feel a lot of vibration in the front. I was very annoyed, because there was obviously no time to stop and change the tire," Aleix said. "[The same thing] happened with more than seven riders on Friday. Also with [Joan] Mir in qualifying. My tires have always been perfect [throughout the weekend], but today was unbelievable. A lot of vibration, a lot of shaking," he followed.
"For the first six, seven laps with the new tire, I was able to manage very well, but then it was impossible. My best sector during the weekend was sector three, the fastest part of the track, and it was impossible for me to drive," he indicated. "It was a matter of avoiding the crash all the time and it was surprising because I was spinning very, very slow. But still, I was racing for the podium," he stressed.
Despite the problems, Aleix remained among the leaders. After Francesco Bagnaia's crash in the opening of the third lap, the Catalan was third behind Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco, and even with what he classified as "Moto2 pace", he managed to contain Maverick Viñales' attacks.
The Aprilia teammate, however, had to abandon because of a broken RS-GP and it was Jack Miller who emerged to take the podium from the oldest Espargaró, taking advantage of an error by Aleix, who had been resisting the Australian's attacks.
"The mistake in the braking was my fault [not the front tire], because I had that problem since the grid and I made that corner 28 times before I made the mistake," he scored. "But it was very difficult to control, very difficult. I closed the line every time, trying to brake on my face and then accelerate instead of doing corner speed, which is the Aprilia's strong point," he explained.
"And you have to simply analyze my pace. I was super slow. On some laps, I was doing 1min23s high, which is only a second faster than Augusto [Fernandez, in Moto2]," he compared. "So they were very slow lap times and, honestly, I'm happy to get fourth place because it's a lot of points in the championship, but today our potential was easily to fight for second place," he assessed.
The Catalan said that he is sure that what happened in Sachsenring was a failure with the tire and explained that Michelin, the sole supplier of the shoes in the category, will analyze what happened.
"But it won't change anything for me. The race is over. But clearly I have no doubt that the tire was not ok. I used four or five front hard tires during the weekend perfectly," he indicated. "I went to the grid with a 16-lap used tire, the bike was pretty okay, and then as soon as we put a new tire on, I got to turn one and the bike started to vibrate. So I have no doubts," he insisted.
Asked if it wouldn't be better then to put on the race tire before leaving the pits, as this would give time to identify and solve eventual problems, Aleix replied: "In every race [we changed tires on the grid], but even if I had started with a new tire in the garage and felt the vibrations, I didn't have new tires anymore. I had four hard tires for the whole weekend, so I didn't have any front ones left."
Despite retaining second place in MotoGP, Aleix is now 34 points behind Quartararo in the World Riders' Championship standings.
"It's difficult. For me, the problem is not the points. 34 points is not so much. The problem is that he is always faster than me on Sundays," he acknowledged. "Today, I think I could have beaten Zarco if I had a normal front tire. The pace was there, but Fabio won easily. So the problem is that on Sunday he is faster than me. I need to find some speed," he concluded.
MotoGP is back on track next week for the Dutch GP in Assen, the 11th round of the 2022 season.GRANDE PRÊMIO is following all the activities of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship.