Pol Espargaro Is Haunted By Question Marks Because The Speed Of The Honda RC213V Is Sluggish

JAKARTA – Repsol Honda racer Pol Espargaro is haunted by question marks after the Portuguese MotoGP Grand Prix. He was surprised because the speed of the Honda RC213V motorbike he was driving seemed to have disappeared.

Espargaro finished Portugal's fifth series by finishing ninth at the Portimao Circuit on Sunday, April 24, WIB. He is 16.769 seconds adrift of defending champion Fabio Quartararo who locked the first podium.

This result made Espargaro wonder what the cause of his motorbike's speed seemed to be missing.

"We are not satisfied with how the race went. We didn't have the pace today. It's time to understand more why this situation happened because during pre-season we were tough", he said, quoted from the official Repsol Honda team website.

Racing in Portugal really left Honda a chore. Because only Espargaro, bad results were also obtained by their other riders.

Six-time MotoGP world champion, Marc Marquez, also couldn't get a podium finish. The Spaniard only finished in sixth place, followed by his younger brother Alex Marquez (LCR) in seventh place, and Takaaki Nakagami deep in 16th.

"We have to keep working, we have to work harder than our competitors to overcome this problem. Fortunately, we have amazing engineers in Japan and a great team here on the track to work with", said Espargaro.

The next race will take place at the Jerez Circuit, Spangol, on May 1. Espargaro hopes that during the race at home, his team will find a solution for the speed of the RC213V.

"Jerez is a good place to turn this situation around and I'm glad we can go straight there to continue working. There are already some ideas to change the situation in Jerez. So I hope the weather there is favorable", he said.

The MotoGP standings are currently held by Quartararo with 61 points, followed by Alex Rins with the same number of points in second place. Meanwhile, Esparago is still in 12th place with a collection of 30 points.

So far Espargaro has only enjoyed one podium in five races that have been held. The only podium was a third-place finish in the opening series at the Qatar International Circuit in March.