BRADL TAKES A SPOT ON THE FIFTH ROW WITH THE BEST APRILIA QUALIFYING OF THE SEASON. SEVENTH ROW FOR ALVARO BAUTISTA
Silverstone (UK), 29 August 2015 – The Aprilia Racing Team Gresini had good qualifying sessions at Silverstone on the decisive day that defines the starting grid for the race tomorrow.
With the 14th best time (fourth in QP1), Stefan Bradl rode his RS-GP to the centre spot on the fifth row. This is the best qualifying placement thus far in the Aprilia RS-GP’s rookie season.
After some intense work on race pace in FP3 and FP4, Bautista and Bradl took on the qualifiers with different states of mind. The Spaniard was more confident with his pace and Stefan was more aware of his room for improvement in the race. But on his flying lap the German put forth his best effort and took a great placement in 2’02,657.
Bautista, who secured the 20th best time (tenth in QP1 with 2’02,908), took a spot on the seventh row, but he is optimistic about his performance over race distance.
ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)
“The best qualifiers of the year tells us that we are improving and that we have two excellent riders. Stefan is particularly strong on his flying lap but if the RS-GP, with its lab-bike limits, is set up the way we managed to have it today, it performs very well. Alvaro’s pace in FP4 is also very positive. After some difficult practice sessions the guys did a great job on the bikes, managing to restore the riders’ confidence. Every day of good work, like the ones we’ve had here, and the solutions to the problems that we are finding little by little, are gems of knowledge that are accumulating as we go. It could be a very interesting race for us tomorrow, in the hopes that the weather stays dry like it has been so far this weekend.”
FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
“A great performance. With Bradl we achieved our best result of the season in qualifiers and Bautista’s times are also encouraging, not far off Stefan’s. I think this is a sign that our hard work is bearing fruit and that we are taking steps forward. Now we want to confirm this progress in the race tomorrow as well. We’ll try to improve our pace over race distance and repeat the result we achieved at Brno, with both our bikes finishing in the points.”
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“In FP3 this morning we worked a lot on race pace and we found a solution that helped me to be more consistent on worn tyres. In the last session we made a few small changes and improved performance going into turns. I was feeling good, trying to maintain a consistent pace even on a very worn tyre. Maybe all of that work took a bit off my fast lap, but it gave me more confidence for performance over race distance.”
STEFAN BRADL
“I’m very pleased with my performance in qualifying. I managed to get two very nice flying laps in, both with the first qualifier tyre and with the second one. In any case, with new tyres the bike is performing very well. Our priority now is to improve our race pace. Today we tried a few different changes, but in FP4 I would have preferred to maintain a faster pace. We’ll try to use the Warm Up session to improve tomorrow so we can be more effective in the race.”
