Pol Espargaro Set For Third Wildcard of 2024 at Misano

Pol Espargaro will compete in back-to-back MotoGP races for the first time since the end of last season this weekend.

Round 13 heads to Misano and Espargaro will line up alongside factory KTM riders Brad Binder and Jack Miller, after doing so at Mugello and again last time out in Spielberg. KTM has endured a tougher season in 2024 than many expected, but its home round in Austria saw both Binder and Miller return to form.

Espargaro is part of KTM’s formidable test team which also includes Dani Pedrosa, after losing his status as a full-time rider to Pedro Acosta. But the Spaniard has relished being a test rider and not having to face the constant stresses of performing every weekend.

“I'm happy that I don't have it every weekend,” he told The Race at the Austrian MotoGP. “I think the point is that these guys are riding every weekend and here with you guys, with the media, with the pressure of all these people - they don't realise how bad it feels, to their bodies and brains.

"But when you're outside, and you see it from the outside, and you go inside again, you really feel it. My character really changes a lot. My wife, she's with me this weekend - and I can feel how I'm reacting to her every time I wake up in the morning, and how [differently] I react to her every time I'm at home, a normal day. This pressure, to handle, it's very big - but they [the full-time riders] don't realise, because they are used to it. It's very big."

But that said, the Misano podium finisher in 2020 is excited to get back on the circuit this weekend, saying: “Mugello meant we could come back to MotoGP speed and then we felt much more competitive at Red Bull Ring where we had made a lot of testing laps.

“Misano is another familiar circuit and I’m happy to get back onto the grid after the work we made in Austria. We need to reconfirm some data in race conditions and also do what we can to help the guys – Brad and Jack – with their settings for the two GPs we have there.”