Team KTM's rider Pol Espargaro says his crash in MotoGP FP2 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was a result of him being forced to run on the medium compound front tyre.
Throughout the season, Espargaro has been riding his KTM on the hard-compound fitted onto the front tyre. However, an allocation of just five to get through the weekend has forced him to use the medium option.
Espargaro stated that he had a "big lock-up" of tyre while trying to go for the turn 13 right-hander at Misano and "needed to crash" since he was unable to get enough traction to slow the bike down as the "speed was huge".
"We have just five hard ones [front tyre] to use for the weekend, which is the one that gives me the safety to brake," Espargaro explained. "We could use one at the end of FP1, which was very good.
"But then because we need a back-up also for Sunday, we needed to use a medium front in the afternoon when the temperature is going up and I cannot use this tyre. But we need to use it because we don't have enough [hard] tyres.
"I went into [sector] three, at Turns 11, 12, 13, where normally I'm one of the fastest. But with this tyre I couldn't hold the line, then I had a big lock-up and I needed to go straight. The speed was huge and I needed to crash."
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Espargaro walked away unharmed from the incident. He ended the race being the fifth fastest - 0.071 seconds from KTM team-mate Brad Binder.
Binder could not get away with the Q2 in the San Marino race and was 12th as the chequered flag came out, with the South African admitting he was "quite stuck" before Friday's Emilia Romagna running.
"I had a really good FP2," Binder reflected. "First session we had some issues and we had a difficult time, but pretty much I had a clear idea of what I needed for FP2 to try and improve.
"We managed to make some good improvements and I felt a lot more comfortable on the bike in the last exit in FP2.
"All in all, that made it a lot more possible for us just to improve the lap time, because the last few days I felt quite stuck with just my feeling and I wasn't so comfortable.
He added, "So, I'm really happy to have made a good step forward with that."
