You can change the bike in a lot of ways – you can make it longer, taller, shorter, whatever, but the behaviour never really changes and the way you need to ride the bike never really changes, even sometimes when you change the engine spec it doesn’t change the way you ride the bike.

At the very beginning with KTM we used a screamer engine and then after the first few races [of 2017] we changed to a big-bang engine. It was very different, super-different, but the bike was pretty similar to ride. I don’t know why but when you jump on a bike you understand how you need to ride the bike and then you can change frames, swingarms, which are big parts of the bike, and the character changes a little, but the soul of the bike stays the same.

So do you think Honda’s biggest issue is the engine?

It’s a combination. They are struggling so much that it’s not just one thing, so it’s a combination.

You’ve been in MotoGP ten years now…

It’s a long time, thanks for reminding me!

I suppose the biggest change you’ve seen is the arrival of downforce aerodynamics, so how has downforce aero changed the way you need to ride the bike?

Massively, massively, everything. Now, when you go out onto the track you think about what you need to focus on, what you need to try, and it’s the aero.

In the beginning of the aero era, which was also the beginning of KTM, it was a topic you didn’t look at so much, it was something you always skipped when you got a list of test items – they were always the last things you tested because it wasn’t nice to try them.

It’s nice to try new chassis parts and so on, but the aero has such a big effect on the bike that it can make you crash or highside or whatever when you don’t expect it. So the aero was the thing we always left till last.

But now it’s the biggest topic, so you fit aero items first and then you figure out the engine and chassis settings. They are the last things now, so it’s unbelievable!

I suppose when you change a chassis you straight away go, ‘Oh this is better here and worse there’, but aero is like a big mystery, isn’t it?

Yeah, it’s a big mystery, so you need many more engineers thinking about this and looking at the data. When you try a new chassis it’s pretty clear, but with the aero there’s always lots of question marks.

The aero needs to make the bike turn, it needs to make the bike stop, it needs to stop wheelies and it needs to give the bike a huge top speed, so this combination is super-difficult to get.

So when you fit new aero you have to find a compromise and if the rider makes the choice it’s so easy to make a mistake and lose your way. That’s why the engineering side of MotoGP is increasing within all the manufacturers.

If we say that results in MotoGP used to be 60 or 70% down to the rider and 30 or 40% to the bike, do you think that ratio is changing?

A little bit. I believe that if we look at Ducati’s philosophy – and this isn’t a criticism – the way they work is more with the engineers than with the riders. What I hear is that the engineers arrive and say to the rider testing the new parts, ‘This part will work this way’, and the rider needs to adapt, so there’s no, ‘Do you like it?’. It’s just about data. I like the KTM style which mixes it a bit, so there’s the matter of the rider’s opinion, plus the engineers checking the data, all to improve the material.

So you can no longer just go out and ride – the engineers tell you to do this or do that?

It’s going more and more like that, because in one way this gives you the answers, and it doesn’t matter if the rider likes something or not. If you can see it’s better on the data then it’s better. So what I’m saying is that this goes against the riders, but this way of engineering helps to avoid problems you don’t expect at different racetracks.

The good point of the aero and the ride-height adjusters is that they make the bikes more stable – they really reduce the problems we used to have. Before these new technologies, if the bike wasn’t turning you had to adjust the bike up and down so much to make it turn. Now the aero helps the bike do a lot of things, so the problems are less, so you need to adjust the bike much less than before, just a few millis [millimetres] at the front and rear. No big changes.

You had a huge crash at Portimao which hurt you really badly [Espargaró hit a wall, which left him with fractures in his back and neck, a broken jaw and ribs and other injuries] but when you came back four and a half months later you were quickly back up to speed [sixth in his second sprint!]…

More or less!

How do you do that?

[Espargaró emits a heartfelt sigh, suggesting his recovery and comeback were far from easy.] It was like this because I know the people I’m working with and I’ve known the bike for so long, so for me it was easy, because when I had a question mark, I had the right people to talk with and solve that question mark. Jumping on the bike I knew what I was going to find. Even if the bike had changed a lot in those months, what I was saying before, the soul of the bike was the same, so it was like being with an old friend.

I was expecting that riding again would be a problem, but in fact the problem for me was my physical condition. The riding itself came pretty naturally.

So you had to psyche yourself up to overcome the fear?

Yeah, I was worried about that. One good thing about the crash was that I crashed on an out-lap, so I wasn’t pushing, so the problem wasn’t that I was pushing too hard.

It was stupid crash, so now I’m a bit scared every time I leave the box for an out-lap, so I struggle to follow the other guys out of pit lane. Many times I’ve been behind Brad [Binder] and I’ve struggled to follow him – even at the start of a time attack I cross the line one second behind him, because out-laps are a struggle for me since the crash. I used to be one of the fastest guys on out-laps with new tyres, which is quite risky.

Because when the tyres are cold you get no warning?

Yes, if you remember the crash that [Marco] Bezzecchi had at Silverstone [a monster highside during an out-lap in the Friday afternoon session], that kind of crash is so aggressive and you don’t expect them – that’s why they’re so massive and the injuries are so big.

A few years ago, Cal Crutchlow told me, ‘I’ve always been a crasher and that’s the way it is’, so are you the same? For example you had five crashes during September’s San Marino GP – is that a personal record?

I think so. Historically I’ve always been fast at Misano: fighting for good positions in 125s, winning in Moto2, a podium and a pole in MotoGP with KTM and Honda, so it’s a place where maybe I set my target higher than I should, so I was going for it. For me, it’s a place where I understand many things, but I still need to go for it.

It’s a grippy track, so is that one reason why it works for you?

I also understand a lot about the bike when I’m at Misano, but maybe I was trying too hard, so I had all those crashes. Four of them were just because I was going for it. It’s like what you said about Cal – I’ve crashed a lot in my career because it’s how I understand where the limit is.

All the KTM guys liked this at the start of the project, because I was always going to the limit. I wasn’t just having fun, going one second slower than the pace, I always gave my best, because I was scared that if I didn’t do this all the time, then when the bike finally worked properly I wouldn’t be able to catch back the gap.

Your last crash at Misano was during the Monday tests – it sounded very scary, so what happened?

We were trying different things with the bike and I went into Turn 11 [the 170mph right at the end of the back straight] pretty fast and ended up on the kerb, which made the bike unstable. I thought the shake wasn’t so big, but looking at the data later it was big!

The front brake pads opened fully, so I squeezed the lever four times, but when I went for the brakes for Turn 13 [a 120mph right] I had no brakes, so I went straight and crashed, because I didn’t want to hit the wall. The problem was that although I squeezed the lever four times I released it at 80% span, so the hydraulic fluid between the lever and the caliper wasn’t exiting fully.

How are you coping with the heat here? [We’re chatting at Buddh, during September’s inaugural Indian GP, where many riders struggled with gruelling heat and humidity.] How does it compare to the Suzuka Eight Hours [another race in tortuous weather, which Espargaró won in 2015]?

The difference is that I rode a superbike at the Eight Hours and I’m riding a MotoGP bike here, so it’s not possible to compare, because the superbike is so much less physical – the difference is huge! It’s pretty hard to ride here because the heat and humidity are high and there’s so much heat coming from the bike.

My problem is that my physical fitness [since the Portimao crash] is very, very bad, so I can’t really compare myself to my normal self. Today I pushed for a time attack and I was done, I was cooked, so I was pretty tired and couldn’t perform well. At the moment I can’t handle these extreme conditions as well as the other guys, but I’m not complaining, it’s my physical condition, so it’s my problem.