VOL. 52 ISSUE 16 APRIL 21, 2015 P79
race because of a crash.
He was livid with himself as
he walked away, and worried
about pain in his stomach. Later,
somewhat calmer, Marquez
said: "Fortunately I am okay. It
was an interesting race, with me
and Valentino [Rossi] on differ-
ent strategies. I knew it would be
hard to beat him here, so I took
that risk.
"I took a gap, but when I saw
Briefly...
free practice leader Aleix Espargaro
employed the same tactic in his bid
to depose the Honda rider. Despite
"riding like a beast" the Suzuki fell
more than half a second short. Es-
pargaro, enjoying a track where the
sweet-handling Suzuki's lack of top
end was less of a penalty, remained
second, better than a tenth ahead of
third-placed Andrea Iannone's Duca-
ti. Marc Marquez revealed that the
idea to use an extra rear tire for an
extra chance at a hot lap originated
in Argentina last year; where he and
his team realized after qualifying that
they would have had time for three
runs. He adopted the practice to
claim pole again at the next round at
Jerez, another track with a shorter
lap time.
The Suzuki's surprising strength, af-
ter downbeat testing last year, has
taken everyone by surprise. But
there is still a long way to go, re-
vealed Aleix Espargaro, who could
hardly believe that he was on the front
row at the GSX-RR's third race. The
shortage of top-end horsepower is
well known; but the compensation is
the best handling in the class, a par-
ticular asset at a flowing circuit like
Termas. But there was another vex-
ing and rather mysterious problem:
serious chatter, but only on right-
hand turns. Both he and teammate
Maverick Vinales were suffering,
said Espargaro, and the team tech
men were scratching their heads.
"Our problem is not tire consumption
but chatter," he said, "It is only on the
right, and starts after two or three
laps. We can't understand why. The
good thing is we have some ideas,
and after Jerez there is a test where
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