Pol Espargaró made it to the end of the MotoGP Indian GP race, but in an exhausting round from a physical point of view, he had to slow down to accomplish it. The GasGas Tech3 rider finished in 13th place.
The Spanish rider described a state of extreme physical fatigue after the race: ‘I feel so tired. I believe same than my colleagues. But coming where I come from, these injuries, I don’t felt super good. I reach my maximum heart rate ever; I didn’t expect to do that and it was 198. I was shocked, I was surprised – I cannot reach that training at home with bicycle or whatever. So I believe it’s low oxygen and this track makes everything quite though. And also the heat’.
Asked whether the Indian round was the hardest physical challenge he has faced since returning from injuries, Espargaró replied: ‘Every race track you have a little bit, but this one is really extreme. I felt weak. In the race I felt I lost a lot of time by being weak on physical condition. Maybe in another places no, but here I needed to drop a lot my lap time: I was in 1m46s high/1m46.8s, while I think I could be in 1m46.4s, 1m46.5s, 1m46.3s – something like that. It was the first time I really felt that I needed to drop, otherwise I wouldn’t finish the race. But it’s part of the improvement; I need to keep working and for sure in the next races or in preseason I’ll have more time to come back in my normal state’.