Alex Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi ran a race of their own at the front of the pack to finish first and second respectively in the British Grand Prix sprint race but perhaps the gutsiest performance in the MotoGP field went to the 17th-place finisher Pol Espargaro.
After a horrendous practice crash in the season opener 134 days ago at Algarve International Circuit in Portimao, Portugal, Espargaro overcame fear and discomfort on his GasGas bike as he reintroduced himself to race pace.
As he prepared to return for the British Grand Prix, Espargaro reflected on his injury that produced a badly fractured jaw and broken vertebrae.
“I cry a lot from pain and from sadness,” Espargaro said. “It was very hard to handle these situations. I can say it’s been the three toughest months of my life. I had eight fractures in total and some of them were quite ugly.
“In some ways we are used to injuries - not as big as I had (at Portimao), but in all my career: crashing, getting injured and then coming back.”
It is taking a little time to get comfortable on the bike again but Espargaro made steady progress in British GP prelims. He was last in the first Free Practice, finishing the session more than three seconds off the pace. He improved a couple of spots in Free Practice 2 to land 20th.
Espargaro’s climb up the charts continued into qualification. He lined up 15th for the sprint race.
“Changing directions at this high a speed, with this bike, my brain was not as fast as everything was coming,” Espargaro said at The-Race.com. “I wanted to do more but, especially in the first practice, my brain was not working fast enough for all the information I was getting.
“And you realize how fast this bike is. … and how fast everything comes. It’s insane. It’s insane. Mentally, I mean, I’m destroyed. Because it’s like you’re asking a lot of yourself and you are not able.”
Espargaro moved up briefly to 10th-place on Lap 1 of the sprint, just one position behind what was needed to score points for the race. Ultimately he fell back to 16th, 26 seconds behind the winner Marquez.
But the finishing position was inconsequential. Espargaro needed to find his comfort level, which was not an easy thing to do as he watched Bezzecchi get ejected from his bike on an outlap with cold tires.
Wet conditions in the race shuffled the order in front of and behind Espargaro.
Francesco Bagnaia lined up fourth but early in the race he ran wide in a turn and fell outside the top 15. Bagnaia made up a few positions, but with tricky track condition and only 10 laps to make up the ground, he decided the best course of action was safety. Bagnaia finished 14th. With his second-place finish, Bezzecchi earned nine points on championship leader Bagnaia, who did not earn any points for his effort. It was the first time this year that Bagnaia failed to earn any points on Saturday.
Marquez won the spring by .366 seconds over Bezzecchi. Maverik Vinales was three seconds further back in third.
“It’s a little thing to start the second half of the season with winning this sprint one,” Marquez said from the top spot of the podium. “I knew before the race that today was the day to win. I was a little bit limping in the first corner but I said I need to push because I was feeling really good.”
Brother Marc Marquez struggled in the race and finished a distant 18th.
The news was worse for the 2021MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo who started last in the spring race. It took two laps to gain a single position on the track and Quartararo was never able to pass another rider.
The British GP will mark the first time in his career that 19time pole winner Quartararo will start worse than 20 in 80 previous qualification sessions. He has been outside the top 10 only 11 times; six of those have come this year.
Click here for complete results from the British GP sprint race.
