Aleix Espargaro was looking forward to returning to Misano for two days of Official testing with his Aprilia after a difficult and tiring San Marino GP.

“I was fighting for fourth, fifth place with Marc and Mir all race, the pace was very, very strong, but the bike was very difficult to ride sincerely,” Espargaro said of Sunday’s battle.

“Very very unstable, very difficult to stop, it had no grip at all so I was fighting all the race. In the last five laps, when I was still in ’32.5 but sincerely risking like hell, I make two mistakes. I went wide in turn one and then Mir overtook me and then when I was trying to recover again, pushing on the brakes in eight, I went completely wide, I lose five-seconds and also Pol overtook me. So overall I'm satisfied with the performance because the bike hasn't been competitive. It was very, very difficult to ride. So anyway, we took some points, and looking forward to America, but we have two days of test here to improve because every year is the same here in Misano. It's very, very difficult for us to stop the bike, very unstable and, I mean the performance wasn't bad because we were fighting with Marc and Joan, the last two world champions, so it's not that bad, but not as good as the other races.

“Sincerely in the last two races I've never risked, even in the qualifying, like I did in every lap of this GP,” he continued. “I thought in certain moments that I couldn't handle it and I crash, but at the end we took some points. I'm very tired sincerely, is the first time this year that I finish a race very tired. So hopefully, on the test we can improve the bike because we still have one round more here.”

Focusing on Tuesday and Wednesday’s test schedule, the Catalan was pleased that Aprilia would be fielding the full set, as Lorenzo Savadori returns to testing duties, alongside himself and new teammate Maverick Viñales.

“So we'll have Maverick, myself and will be I think also the test team here with Lorenzo, which is even more important because Lorenzo is a very fast rider who can also test many things before these things arrive into our garage. So will be the first time in a long time that this can happen and I'm very, very happy about it.

“I had a long meeting in the afternoon with Romano and the engineers to understand a little bit, the start we ask for the test. I asked them to have at least three, four hours to try to improve the setting of the bike. I have some ideas to increase the stopping performance of the bike. So we have to see how we organise everything because obviously it's important because the winter test now, they're not very long. So it's important to develop the new bike but at the same time, we have to remember that we have to race here again.

"So if we can improve a little bit the bike, was not completely stupid thing to say that we can fight for the podium because I've been in fourth place, many, many laps, till the end. So we are not that far and if we can make one step forward maybe we can have a good reward on the next race here.”