Espargaro ends testing in strong form

The final premier class test of the 2014 MotoGP preseason concluded on Sunday night at the floodlit desert circuit of Qatar, with Aleix Espargaro the fastest rider in attendance – just ahead of his younger brother Pol, who suffered a collarbone break in a late evening crash.

Over the last few months, during the preparations for the new MotoGP™ World Championship campaign, the elder Espargaro sibling has been the standout performer of the testing period – showing the potential of his ‘Open’ entry Yamaha for the NGM Mobile Forward Racing team.

He set the best time of the three day Qatar test with a 1:54.874 on the 19th of 47 Sunday laps. That time was less than 0.2 off Jorge Lorenzo’s 2013 pole lap at the Losail Circuit and Espargaro also looked strong in a race simulation which he carried out late on the final day.

His brother Pol Espargaro, the Moto2™ World Champion and a rookie this season, was just 0.033 behind him in second place, but the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 youngster’s good preseason ended with an untimely collarbone fracture. He crashed at turn 6 and was taken straight to medical centre, with the extent of his injury still under examination – he faces surgery in Barcelona on Monday.

On the other side of the Tech 3 garage, Englishman Bradley Smith has a year of MotoGP racing under his belt and having finished third at the test (+0.153) one of his objectives will be to beat the Espargaro brothers in the opening Grands Prix of 2014. Smith escaped unhurt from a mid evening spill from his Yamaha YZR-M1.

After the three Yamahas at the top of the timesheet, Honda riders Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista were fourth and fifth respectively with similar lap times, the pair of them avoiding injury despite both crashing twice on Sunday. LCR Honda man Bradl notched a 1:55.187 best time, putting him 0.045 ahead of his GO&FUN Honda Gresini rival.

Pramac Racing’s Andrea Iannone was the faster of the two Ducati riders on track again, finishing 0.644 off the pace, while Energy T.I. Pramac Racing’s Yonny Hernandez (+1.182) was eighth on the 2013 Ducati bike.

In seventh place meanwhile, Colin Edwards again chipped a few tenths off his previous day’s best and ends preseason lapping around a second slower than his Forward Racing colleague Espargaro. The experienced Texan puts the time difference down to riding style and aims to adapt to a Yamaha machine different to that which he has previously ridden.

The top 10 was rounded out by Drive M7 Aspar colleagues Nicky Hayden (+1.399) and Hiroshi Aoyama (+2.132) on their ‘Open’ Honda RCV1000R machines. Hayden made a 0.65 improvement in outright pace on the final day and was generally pleased with his rhythm over race distance, but wants more competitiveness for Grand Prix competition.

There is a Moto2™ and Moto3™ test this week at Jerez, completing the World Championship’s 2014 preseason – ahead of round one’s Commercial Bank Grand Prix of Qatar (March 20-23).

MotoGP Day 3 Test Results

1. 1              ESPARGARO, Aleix          NGM Mobile Forward Racing      1:54.874                                           19 / 47  
2. 2              ESPARGARO, Pol              Monster Yamaha Tech 3               1:54.907       0.033     0.033     25 / 45  
3. 3              SMITH, Bradley Monster Yamaha Tech 3               1:55.027               0.153     0.120     15 / 55  
4. 4              BRADL, Stefan   LCR Honda MotoGP        1:55.187               0.313     0.160     3 / 40    
5. 5              BAUTISTA, Alvaro            GO&FUN Honda Gresini               1:55.232               0.358     0.045     8 / 50    
6. 6              IANNONE, Andrea           Pramac Racing   1:55.518               0.644     0.286     29 / 59  
7. 7              EDWARDS, Colin               NGM Mobile Forward Racing      1:55.978               1.104     0.460     24 / 31  
8. 8              HERNANDEZ, Yonny        Energy T.I. Pramac Racing             1:56.056        1.182     0.078     33 / 47  
9. 9              HAYDEN, Nicky  Drive M7 Aspar 1:56.273               1.399     0.217     37 / 44  
10. 10           AOYAMA, Hiroshi             Drive M7 Aspar 1:57.006               2.132     0.733     55 / 56  
11. 11           REDDING, Scott                GO&FUN Honda Gresini               1:57.009               2.135     0.003     25 / 50  
12. 12           BARBERA, Hector             Avintia Racing    1:57.142               2.268     0.133     5 / 38    
13. 13           ABRAHAM, Karel              Cardion AB Motoracing 1:57.342               2.468     0.200     28 / 34  
14. 14           DI MEGLIO, Mike             Avintia Racing    1:57.669               2.795     0.327     17 / 44  
15. 15           PETRUCCI, Danilo             IodaRacing Project          1:58.086               3.212     0.417     42 / 55  
16. 16           LAVERTY, Michael            Paul Bird Motorsport      1:58.555               3.681     0.469     16 / 30  
17. 17           PARKES, Broc     Paul Bird Motorsport      1:58.971               4.097     0.416     6 / 20    

–From motogp.com

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