THE TYRE STOPS A NICE COMEBACK BY ALEIX ESPARGARÓ
With a good performance, Aleix Espargaró was making up for a difficult weekend that was characterised by ups and downs. After battling with the best all the way through FP3 on Saturday, Espargaró had ended up in the last spots on the starting grid, forced to ride in the qualifiers astride the second bike. Once again positive in the warm up session, finishing with the ninth best time, Aleix started from the 21st spot on the grid. He gradually moved up to 12th place, standing out with a good race pace and giving the impression that he would be able to move even farther up in the rankings. But 3 laps from the end, a total and abrupt deterioration of rear tyre performance forced him to retire.
At the end of the first lap, Scott Redding was involved in Karel Abraham’s accident, also ending up in the gravel. Fortunately, he suffered no consequence after the bad fall, but it obviously ended the race for him.
ALEIX ESPARGARO’
“I knew from the start that it would be a hard race, but I started well and immediately recovered some positions. Around the tenth lap, I began to feel that the rear tyre wasn’t working right. I had very little grip and I risked crashing a couple of times going into corners with the throttle closed. Lap after lap, things got worse until they were bad enough to force me to box. What happened was very strange. We’ll analyse the tyre to figure out the source of the problem. This was an important weekend where, unlike other occasions, we were never able to be competitive. I am still convinced that the potential of the RS-GP is not what we have seen so far. Rather than forget this weekend, we need to study the data well to find what didn’t work right during these three days.”
SCOTT REDDING
“The weekend ended in the worst possible way. On the last turn of the first lap, Abraham crashed out. His bike hit me and took me down. I was thrown from the bike rather violently, so much that I had the wind knocked out of me when I hit the ground. I have a few other bruises too and hopefully there won’t be any lasting consequences.”
ROMANO ALBESIANO – APRILIA RACING MANAGER
“This was not an easy weekend. The layout of this track, with a lot of fast chicanes, highlighted one of the areas where we know the RS-GP needs to improve, namely going into turns without touching the brakes or the throttle. Despite this, and also considering a start from the back of the grid due to an episode that occurred in practice, we were just outside the top ten with Aleix. Unfortunately, we were stopped by a problem with the rear tyre, which we will analyse now. It’s a pity. So far various problems have happened to us, so I hope that we’ll be able to reverse the trend as soon as possible.”
FAUSTO GRESINI – TEAM MANAGER
“Aleix rode a more than respectable race, with a pace that was not far off that of the leaders, but he was forced to stop because of a tyre problem Even a race placement would have been a just reward for the entire team that had to tackle a difficult weekend, but instead we had a double zero in the end that is really disappointing to us because it is undeserved, given the fact that Scott also ended up involved in an accident by no fault of his own.”
