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THE BIKES ARE BACK ON THE TRACK AT THE SPIELBERG RED BULL RING IN AUSTRIA

21 August 2020

WORK IN VIEW OF THE RACE FOR ALEIX AND BRADLEY

The name changes (GP of Styria) but not the track – the fast asphalt of the Red Bull Ring. For the first two practice session for the second Austrian Grand Prix, much work was done in preparation for the race in the Aprilia garage, with a lot of runs on used tyres and particular focus on pace.

Aleix was looking particularly good in the afternoon session, the one that is closed to the race situation in terms of temperature and track conditions. His eighth-best time, however, became twelfth place in the combined times of the two sessions, a position that the Spanish rider intends to improve on in FP3 tomorrow morning.

It was a good day for Bradley Smith, just over 3 tenths behind his teammate in the combined standings and focused on preparing for the race Sunday.

ALEIX ESPARGARO’

“Overall, they were two good sessions. We worked a lot with used tyres in light of what happened last Sunday. In fact, I didn’t even do a time attack in FP1. In the afternoon, I knew that with the higher temperatures it would be difficult to get below the 1’24 mark, but I was able to finish in the top 10 of the session and that is important. I feel good and I think that there is still room for improvement on our part on this track as well.”

BRADLEY SMITH
“Definitely a positive day. The time this morning was better than my best from last week. In the afternoon, I didn’t put on the new tyre for a time attack. Our goal was to analyse the tyre over race distance. It seems like some of the ideas we’re testing will be able to help my riding style. Since we just raced here a few days ago, we took the liberty of making a few more drastic changes than we usually do. I am at the same level as the riders I want to be competing with in the race and that is our goal for the weekend.”