Pol Espargaro falls from above on the official Honda
Pol Espargaro readily admits: "I didn't join the HRC to make the Top 10". With only 41 points in nine races and two eighth places - in Qatar then at Le Mans - as his best results, the n°44 is indeed far from his objectives and from those placed on him by the most capped manufacturer in the Grands Prix...
The comparison with his previous season is instructive: Pol Espargaro has scored 73 points at this stage on the KTM RC16 (+ 32 pts), with which the former 2013 Moto2 world champion had already finished on the podium three times. His fourth and final year in the Austrian MotoGP ended in an excellent 5th place tied with Dovizioso (135 pts), results that were unattainable as they were on the Honda RC213V.
"Pol struggles to understand our bike", almost apologizes the HRC team manager, Alberto Puig, who does not escape the difficulties of his new recruit: Pol Espargaro is only the third Honda rider in the standings behind Marc Marquez (10th) and Takaaki Nakagami (11th), while the first still suffers from his arm and missed the first two races and the second pilots a less advanced RCV at LCR.
Another alarming statistic: the native of Granollers (Spain) is the MotoGP rider most often at fault with 13 crashes to his credit, including two in the race (Portugal and Catalonia). Pol Espargaro alone totals a third of the 39 bowls wiped by the four Honda riders between the GP of Qatar and the GP of the Netherlands (test session and races included)!
Results? The younger brother of Aleix Espargaro has already fallen more in half a season with the Honda than in the whole of 2020 on the KTM (10 falls). This sad record does not fail to refer to the repeated violent antics of Jorge Lorenzo during his short-lived passage on the same bike in 2019...
"I lack experience with the Honda"
"What happens is that everyone knows their bike very well", analyzes Pol Espargaro, the only rider with Danilo Petrucci to have discovered a new MotoGP in 2021. However, the health situation has really not made it easier for the Spaniard and the Italian since the off-season has been reduced to only five days on the same circuit in Qatar!
Insufficient, one suspects, to take the measure of all the subtleties of a prototype as sophisticated and efficient as a MotoGP: Pol Espargaro suffers the consequences with each attempt to accelerate the pace, for lack of knowledge anticipating the limits of the Honda. The Spaniard thus frequently manages to complete a fast lap, but not to chain a series.
"When I need to push, I fall or widen because of my lack of knowledge", regrets the 30-year-old pilot, who admits however to having felt a shock when Marc Marquez stuck to him 15 seconds at the Sachsenring to win the German GP: "Now there are no more excuses", he admitted.
Marquez win - HRC's first since late 2019! - indeed demonstrated that the Honda was still able to triumph, despite the recurring and rather unanimous criticisms of its pilots concerning its restive character and the lack of grip of its rear axle.
A tougher Honda than ever?
Marc Marquez himself was skeptical of the directions taken on the chassis, while Takaaki Nakagami went straight back to the previous year's frame on certain races before adopting the modified 2021 version! Electronic management is also one of the areas for improvement, as evidenced by Marc Marquez's kick after his huge high side during the second practice session in the Netherlands.
"We can't afford to have this kind of accident: the electronics are supposed to be there to avoid this kind of fall, but in the end the traction control didn't have the desired effect", the eight-time world champion got angry, urging the HRC to review the programming of its electronics...
"The fact is that only Honda riders are victims of this kind of high side: Alex and Pol in Portimao (Portugal), while my crash in Jerez last year was very similar", compares Marc Marquez with a explicit implication: this malfunction of the traction control could be responsible for his disqualification for an entire season and his serious arm injuries...
Stefan Bradl, HRC test pilot, has also acknowledged that there was a problem with this assistance until a recent development put an end to it. In the meantime, as Marquez points out, "we have to feel more secure to be fast again: without confidence it is not possible".
All these circumstances do not help to make the task easier for Pol Espargaro, who also has to deal with a motorcycle essentially developed by and for Marc Marquez: proof of this is Honda's relentless descent into hell since the bearer of his project is in trouble.
When Espargaro plans to make Marquez...
With Marquez out, HRC had their worst premier league season last year with no wins: a first since their training in 1982! 2021 does not look much better since Honda is in second to last place in the constructor classification ahead of Aprilia and Honda-Repsol is the last official team in the team classification.
Hence the observation made by Pol Espargaro after the German GP: to go fast on the RCV, it would be necessary to drive it like Marc Marquez. In other words: the Spaniard plans neither more nor less than to copy the style and data of his neighbor in the box, even if he recognizes that "it's not that simple"...
"I'm not saying that I'm going to be as fast as Marc by copying his settings and trajectories", explains Pol Espargaro. "But in my opinion, the best way to be fast is to do exactly like the winner, so as to better understand our weaknesses".
It seems a long time ago when "Polyccio" was impatient to measure himself as an equal to the former MotoGP boss, or even to steal the crown from him on the same bike. Acknowledgment of failure, therefore, especially since this kind of "cloning" attempt is rarely successful: if it were, Maverick Viñales would imitate Fabio Quartararo instead of leaving Yamaha!
Will this somewhat desperate strategy by Pol Espargaro save his first bad start campaign at the HRC? Nothing is less certain... Elements of answers after the long summer break and the resumption planned by two consecutive races in Austria on August 8th and 15th. Stay connected!
