Espargaro left fighting ‘crazy overtakes’

Pol Espargaro has been left bemoaning his results from Sunday’s Argentine MotoGP race despite taking a strong finish in sixth, after his last lap battle with Hector Barbera cost him fourth place.

The duo diced in the second half of the race, but a collision on the last lap put both off track and allowed Eugene Laverty through for the win – something the Spaniard says is a consequence of the shaken-up race order.

“When you are fighting with some riders and you are not used to fighting with them they feel bigger and they try to make crazy overtakes. Things that never have to happen – not beautiful styles of overtaking. I think the problem is we shouldn’t have been there fighting with them – we have to be more in front. “

However, he was also one of a number of riders to also hit out at the advantage handed to the satellite Ducatis by the decision to enforce a mandatory pit stop, removing the Yamaha’s performance on used tyres and handing the red bikes more fuel and more power.

“If it’s in normal conditions for sure sixth would have been good – but the problem is that we can be really fast at the end of the race with used tyres. When you stop after ten laps and you put a new tyre again the Ducatis get a reset. They restart with more power, opening the throttle really early and they become unbeatable again.

“You cannot overtake them and you cannot touch them until their tyre is used again. I think the race today was made for the Ducatis and we were looking at the race just like that. I don’t think today was really fair.”