Thailand: Pol: I thought of trying to catch Marquez as he landed!
Pol Espargaro was just behind Marc Marquez when🤡 the reigning MotoGP champion was thrown into a vicious highside during morn♏ing practice at Buriram in Thailand.
The KTM r🐼ider was so close he later joke🌼d that he thought about trying to catch Marquez as he landed.
But already ridiꦦng with a recently fractured wrist after a very similar oಞut-lap highside at Aragon, Espargaro admitted the Marquez incident spooked him a little and he elected not to fit new soft rubber at the end of the Friday sessions.
Pol Espargaro was just behind Marc Marquez when the reigning MotoGP champion was thrown into a vicious highsid❀e during morning practice at Buriram inꦗ Thailand.
The KTM rider was so close he lat❀er joked that he thought ab𓆏out trying to catch Marquez as he landed.
But already riding with a recently fractured wrist after ꦚa very similar out-lap highside at Aragon, Espargaro admitted the Marquez incident spooked him a little and he elected not to fit new soft rubber at the end of the Friday sessions.
"After this morning and the crash of Marquez, I took it a little bit easier and didn’t put a new tyre at the end of FP2," Espargaro said. "I used the medium and even like that I was only one-second off the top, which is interesting. So tomorrow it's going to be the day to risk a little bit more. Le🌞t's see how it goes and how the pain is when I wake up tomorrow morning."
Returning to the Marquez incident, Espargaro🅰 added: "Honestly, I was really scared! I was close to opening the throttle to try and catch him as he landed!
"I don’t know what 🌺happened. He was not very offline.𝔉 He was not pushing. He had just exited from pitlane and the body position was maybe not the correct one. It was very similar to my crash in Aragon and then Miguel's crash in FP1."
While Es🅺pargaro's accident was put down to a cold tyre in Aragon, the air temperature was over 30-degrees in Thailand this morning, and track temp above 50.
"We kind♛ of say cold tyre, but the tyre's never really cold," Espargaro explained. "The problem is not being in the operating temperature range that the tyre must work in. Then this can happen."
Espargaro, who had a plate fitted in hiജs left wrist at the start of last week, had a scare of his own when he saved a front-end slide with his elbow at the final corner.
"Yeah that was c🍌lose. We are used to doing these kind of things, but the problem is we are not on the TV always so you don’t see it! So it's not the first one, but I'm happy because we could save it.
"I saved it wi🗹th my right elbow. I don’t think if it wasꦍ on the left I could have saved it."
Espargaro was 15th ꧋fastest and the top KTM rider on Friday, 1𒊎.095s from Fabio Quartararo (Petronas Yamaha).
After being taken for hospital checks Marquez returned to action in FP2, leadi🅷ng much of the session.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and🌳 has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at t🅘he forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
