Espargaro takes stunning win with daring move in last corner
Pol Espargaró was triumphant in a spectacular head to head battle with Nico Terol, claiming his third victory of the season and moving up to the second position in the world championship. The Tuenti Derbi rider did a great start and escaped from the accident that sent Marc Marquez to the ground. During the rest of the race it’s been a constant swapping of the race lead with Nico Terol. The race was then decided in the last curve where Polyccio braked a little later and managed to pass Terol on the outside. This is the ninth podium for the Catalan rider in 12 races.
Efrén Vázquez, on the other hand, was just off the podium with fourth position. After a great start he lead the race for several corners, but dropped back later due to a setup problem with his suspension. But the rider from Bilbao gained one place in the championship, moving up to sixth.
There are five races left in the championship. Nico Terol leads with six points ahead of Pol Espargaro, who is five points ahead of Marc Márquez.
1. POL ESPARGARÓ: “I want to dedicate this victory to Shoya Tomizawa, that’s why I sent the champagne towards the sky and knelt down on the podium. It’s a great loss and during the minute of silence today I found the strength to fight for the victory. And this is also for my team, they never give up and support me so much, for my girlfriend Carlota who is always by my side and my family who always supports me and wants the best for me. It’s a very enjoyable race where I’ve been able to win at the only point where I’ve been a bit better than Nico Terol. I’ve risked a lot on the last corner and it paid off, ending the drought of wins since Le Mans. We now took three wins and nine podiums, but the most important is that there are still five races to go and the three first riders [in the championship] are separated by only 11 points. In the first laps when I watched on the big screens I didn’t see an orange-black bike and I thought Marquez just started badly. But later I’ve seen him on the ground during a replay and my team showed me ’93-KO’ on the pitboard. Then I’ve relaxed a little and focused on the fight with Terol. I am very happy and I want say Thank You once more to the team, because they’ve all worked like crazy and at no moment we dropped our guard even when the results weren’t as we hoped. There are five races to go and we will continue fighting from the first practice on in all of them to repeat results like we got today”.
4. EFRÉN VÁZQUEZ: “My pace in the practice made me optimistic that I could fight for the podium today, but in the race the bike was a little hard on the suspensions and I wasn’t able to follow the rhythm of the guys ahead. I managed to get a great start again and got in front, but I immediately realized that I couldn’t ride the way I wanted and was relegated down the order. Later I continued to fight and I managed to get the fourth place. It’s not the result I hoped for, but it moved me up a position in the championship. I want to thank all the fans who showed their support today, but mainly to the thousands of Basque fans who came here to Motorland Aragon to be by our side. I hope next time I can improve this result and return to the podium.”
Source: Tuenti Derbi Racing
