Aleix Espargaro was held back behind Marc Marquez and Jack Miller for much of the Spain Grand Prix, before taking them to third place.
‘I worked hard but it was a frustrating race. Where else we have to work is on the clutch. This season the race starts have been disastrous. This sunday I lost a lot of positions, I still managed to overtake [Takaaki] Nakagami but then it was impossible to overtake Marc [Marquez] and Jack [Miller]. I was quite annoyed because I had a lot more pace but they braked too late and held me back in the middle of the corners, in fact I couldn’t be fast in the corners’, the Aprilia catalan told the post-race press conference, before continuing:
– I saw Pecco [Bagnaia] and Fabio [Quartararo] escape but it was impossible for me to overtake. If he tried he would collide with Marc and crash, that was guaranteed because he crashes too late. So I saw that it wasn’t the day to fight for victory and I could only wait. I saw that they were going wider and wider in the corners towards the end and I knew they were going to make a mistake. When I was overtaking Jack I saw that Marc was going wide so I overtook them both. I think there were five laps to go and then I was half a second faster on the next three laps and got a good pace. Today these two [Pecco and Quartararo] were very strong but today I saw that I was close. In the future I will be able to be closer to them, I don’t know if I will be able to fight for victory with them, but I will walk closer.