Pol: ‘Dangerous to play with aero choice here'

The first is engine design which, once homologated ahead of round one, cannot be changed until the end of the season.

The second is the aerodynamic package which, once homologated, can be updated just once during the 2023 season.

Many riders left Sepang still open-minded over their choice of 2023 aero, preferring to make a final decision after retesting the various options - plus some potential new designs - at Portimao.

GASGAS rider Pol Espargaro thinks that is a mistake, due to the unique nature of the twisty Portuguese track.

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“No, actually I don't want to really play so much here with aero because I think this is dangerous,” said the Spaniard. “I believe this is not a place where [the aero that works here is] is going to work everywhere.

“Malaysia is a good place because you have good braking, hard acceleration, top speed, so it's a place where you need to try [aero]. Fast corners, going in fast. Braking into slow corners - you have everything.

“Here you don't have those long, fast corners apart from the last corner of the circuit.”

The Spaniard, returning to KTM machinery after two frustrating seasons at Repsol Honda, was quickest of the RC16 riders at last month’s Sepang test, in 13th (0.9s).

Espargaro already feels confident that the main parts have been chosen, providing there are no unpleasant surprises this weekend.

“I think in Sepang we ended the test with the package, the bike, that we are going to start the year,” he said. “But for sure there is some mileage missing on some of the new stuff.

“Dani [Pedrosa] did many, many laps on it but we want to make it also a proper test of mileage on some parts of the engine.

“And then for sure reconfirm that what we tried in Malaysia is OK. If we go out here [on Saturday] and everything works more or less OK, it means that we did a good job in Malaysia.

“If there is something [wrong] ‘out-of-the-box’ then then we need to figure it out what are the mistakes, because these two circuits are very different so it can happen.”

Nonetheless, “The plan is to use this test to prepare for the first race of the year… If what we did in Malaysia works good here, we will not need to focus on big things and it's going to be a matter of set-up. That’s the idea."

Testing at Portimao runs from 9:30-5:30pm, on Saturday and Sunday.