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ALEIX IN THE TOP 10 STRAIGHT AWAY IN THE OPENING PRACTICE SESSIONS AT PORTIMÃO

5 November 2021

MAVERICK HAS GOOD PACE, LACKING JUST A BIT ON HIS FLYING LAP

The sun shone down over the first two practice sessions held today on the Portuguese Portimão track. The Aprilia riders got off on the right foot, taking eighth (Maverick) and tenth (Aleix) place in FP1 this morning, then proceeding to fine tune their RS-GP machines in the afternoon session.

With an aggressive time attack in the finale, Aleix took eighth for the day, improving on his best time by 8 tenths and earning a provisional spot in Q2. Maverick, rather positive in terms of pace, lacked that extra kick he would have needed on his flying lap and had to settle for fourteenth place. However, we should point out that he was just one tenth of a second outside the top 10.

ALEIX ESPARGARO’
“Today things didn’t go badly. I’m eighth in spite of still not having the best sensations and that is positive. We clearly need to improve. I’m still struggling too much, especially when trying to stay consistent over several laps. The track didn’t have much grip this morning, but it improved gradually. I think it will continue to do so and that should help us. I’m have faith in what the technicians will be able to propose for me tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll be faster.”

MAVERICK VIÑALES
“I’m rather satisfied with the work we did today. We can’t forget that our primary goal is still to get to know the RS-GP as well as we can and to gather information for next season. I felt fairly good in terms of pace, whereas I’m struggling on the flying lap. The bike moves around a lot, which causes me to make mistakes, making it difficult to be consistent. For tomorrow, we’ll try to find more stability and I’m sure that we’ll make another step forward, partly because, despite not finding the best feeling, I was still close to the top 10.”