RAIN IS THE UNKNOWN FACTOR FOR SUPERPOLE SATURDAY AND THE RACES SUNDAY.
Donington, 23 May 2014 – At the end of a working Friday, exceptionally characterised by three practice session instead of the normally scheduled two, good results were in store for the Aprilia Racing Team. Guintoli and Melandri finished the first day of the Donington weekend with third and sixth place respectively in the combined standings. But the third session had the Frenchman in second place and Marco in fourth – confirmation of the positive developments on this Friday. Of the top riders, including Sykes, the two Aprilia standard bearers were the only ones to improve in the third session.
However, the weather remains the big unknown. The rain that was forecast even for today arrived only in the last seconds of the last session. If the forecast is correct – which calls for rain both Saturday and Sunday – the setups and solutions tested thus far will all be useless.
Sylvain Guintoli: “Today was a very demanding day with three sessions and a lot of testing. The bike is performing very well at the moment on the flying lap, but we still need to work on race pace. We have the speed, our times are proof of that, so we just need to focus on pace to make sure our performance is consistent and to get the most out of the RSV4 over long distance”.
Marco Melandri: “We still haven’t taken a decisive step but, especially in the afternoon when we went back to a standard setup, I was able to go fast in a few laps. We are working 360 degrees to find a setup that will let me be fast and consistent and we are also waiting to see how the weather develops because that will be the biggest unknown of the weekend”.
FRIDAY – COMBINED RESULTS
1. Sykes (Kawasaki) 1’27.840
2. Giugliano (Ducati) 1’28.082
3. Guintoli (Aprilia) 1’28.132
4. Baz (Kawasaki) 1’28.181
5. Lowes (Suzuki) 1’28.187
6. Melandri (Aprilia) 1’28.467
7. Laverty (Suzuki) 1’28.495
8. Rea (Honda) 1’28.665
9. Haslam (Honda) 1’28.833
10. Davies (Ducati) 1’28.947
