Espargaro aiming to score podium by the end of 2017

Former Suzuki rider Espargaro has had a rollercoaster year on Aprilia's RS-GP, equalling the Noale firm's best-ever premier class result on his Qatar debut with a sixth-place finish.

Since then, he has taken three more top-10 finishes, but also retired from four races, which has left the Spaniard down in 14th in the points midway through the campaign.

Speaking before the summer break at the Sachsenring, where Espargaro finished 10th, the Aprilia man said his focus for the rest of the year is to try and get one top-three finish, given his lowly position in the standings.

"The only thing now – I don’t care about the points or the championship – I want is to finish on the podium before we arrive in Valencia," said Espargaro.

"It’s going be difficult to go from 10th place to the podium, but it's positive to be in the same group nearly the whole race as the factory Yamahas and [Andrea] Dovizioso."

'Three years of mistakes in nine races'

Two of Espargaro's four retirements have been the result of engine failures, which came at Jerez and Barcelona - both tracks where low-grip conditions were expected to suit the RS-GP.

But despite the team's failure to realise its full potential, Espargaro remains satisfied with the Aprilia's pace at most circuits, which he admits outstripped his own expectations from when he had originally signed on.

"The balance of the first half of the season is negative for the points, but there have been many factors such as two engines breaking down and the crashes, which have hampered us," he surmised.

"But at the same time we have been fast, faster than people and we ourselves expected. The good races will come, and I’m sure that in the second half of the championship we will enjoy ourselves.

"I am very excited to see that I am more competitive than I expected when I signed. Last year they had to work hard to score points, now they are much further up the field.

"We’ve made the mistakes of three years in these first nine races. The first half of the year has not been positive in terms of numbers, but we have been fast."

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont