Pol Espargaro makes impressive start with Tech 3

MOTO2 World Champion Pol Espargaro has made an impressive start with the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team after improving his lap time by over a second on day two of the Valencia MotoGP test.  

Espargaro set a best lap time of 1’33.187 during his first day on board the YZR-M1, but improved his time yesterday to complete a lap of 1’31.836 less than 0.5s behind British team-mate Bradley Smith.

The MotoGP rookie said after 72 laps of the Valencia circuit: “I’m really happy with the progress we made today and enthusiastic because I thought my first impressions on the bike would be worse, as it was the case when I changed from 125cc to Moto2.

“Fortunately, I truly enjoy riding my new Yamaha YZR-M1. I know that the difficulties of improving my lap time will start soon but I think we have done a pretty good job so far.

“I was 1.3s faster than yesterday and that is just one second behind Jorge, who is my reference point as fastest Yamaha,” added the 22-year-old.

“I started to use different Bridgestone front and rear tyres to understand the behaviour of them and I used the full carbon brakes, which are so different from what I have used before.”

Espargaro will be back on track today to collect more valuable information for himself and the Tech 3 team which will complete their 3-day test at Valencia before heading into the winter break.