Pol Espargaro says he is not joining Honda to finish in the Top 6 of the standings, but the aim is certainly to win the MotoGP title.
Chasing his first MotoGP world title, Esparagro moves to Honda in 2021, with a good chance of doing that on a title-winning bike, as opposed to KTM, who are moving towards the championship step-by-step but are yet to put a stamp on it.
It certainly won’t be an easy ask for Espargaro as apart from Marc Marquez, no one has managed to secure a title abode the Honda in recent times. The likes of Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Alex tried their luck but failed to do so.
With limited testing, the task for Espargaro gets even more handful. The Spaniard is going all-guns blazing with the aim to win rather than settle for a Top 6 position. “The main goal for the season can’t go any other way than being on the podium or trying to win races, or even the world title,” he said in a video shared by Honda.
“We need to improve our results from last year, I had a good year, but it can be better, and I will try my hardest to. The first year isn’t going to be easy but I did not come to the Repsol Honda Team to fight for the top six in the championship, I came here to achieve the highest goal in my career which is to be MotoGP World Champion one day.
“For sure winning races and this goal can be achieved here at Repsol Honda. I will give my maximum to achieve what this team and this brand have been doing in recent years. I’m going to try to give with my proactive attitude; huge work, huge effort, passion, love for this sport and for sure results. Saying that we are happy to finish in the Top 10 is not what the team expect, and it is not what I expect.
“I will give my utmost effort to achieve what this team have been doing in recent years,” summed up Espargaro, who feels that Honda RC2137 could suit his style of late braking, as the videos he has seen from the riders, all of them use that mechanism.
“When I was racing in 125cc, Moto2 and even MotoGP, this team were on the podium practically at every race,” said Espargaro. “Seeing these colours alongside your number is amazing. It’s something super special. From the beginning, I was very clear about where I wanted to go, where I should be and where I wanted to see myself in order to test myself and see what I was capable of.
“The best way to do that is to be with the best team in the world, with the best bike in the world and next to the best rider in the world. I think I am coming to the Repsol Honda Team at the best time of my career. Being where you want to be, at the right time, means fulfilling a dream, and therefore without a doubt I am fulfilling my dream right now.
“I have seen this bike many times in photos and videos and I see it’s a pretty physical, small bike. These shorter bikes where you can manage the bike like you want, tend to move a little bit more but it’s the kind of bike I like to ride. You have a big input on the bike, you’re the one telling the bike what to do.
“Sometimes, for sure, you need to force the bike to do one or two things the bike doesn’t want to do, but it’s my way of riding. I like to brake late, and I have seen that every rider who has got on the Repsol Honda manages to brake very late and very aggressively; that favours me a lot because of my riding style,” summed up Espargaro.
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