GOOD PERFORMANCE FOR ESPARGARÓ AND APRILIA ON THE THIRD ROW
Aleix Espargaró put in a great performance, first finishing FP3 with the seventh best time to go straight through to the Q2 session and then riding his Aprilia to the third row of the starting grid (eighth best time at 1’48.159) for the race tomorrow.
The weather conditions that finally stabilised and the dry track let Espargaró bring out the best from his Italian V4. In all the Saturday sessions, including FP4, dedicated to finding the best race setup, he was well within the top ten and then he made a grand finish with a nice qualifying session.
In standings that are characterised by minimal gaps between the best, Aleix finished just 52 hundredths behind pole position. This is a significant result and another important benchmark in the growth of the RS-GP which, race after race, continues to draw closer and closer to the top spots in the rankings.
Sam Lowes had to deal with two crashes in the final two free practice sessions leading up to the qualifiers and he was then unlucky, running into traffic in Q1 and therefore forced to settle for the eighth row with the 24th best time at 1’50.769.
ALEIX ESPARGARO’
“Overall, I am satisfied. I am having fun riding on this track and I must say that the RS-GP is performing really well. In terms of chassis it is fantastic. We are still lacking something where speed is concerned, but in all the other areas we have reached a very good level. It will be very hot tomorrow and a lot of riders will struggle with the tyres toward the end of the race. 23 laps are a lot, but I think that from this point of view, we are starting from a good base.”
SAM LOWES
“I guess I just shouldn’t do the qualifying, because they never go right for me! I ran into traffic on the track and that basically kept me from doing a good lap. In any case, we worked rather well in view of tomorrow. The expected rise in temperature could be an advantage for us, because we struggle less than the others with grip loss and tyre wear. We need to try something in the warm up session with the balance of the bike, but I feel like I can be in the game for the race. We have some pretty clear ideas about which tyres to use and I did my best time on the sixteenth lap of the race simulation, so I’ll sleep well knowing that.”
