GOOD QUALIFYING AT BRNO FOR STEFAN BRADL, RIDING HIS APRILIA RS-GP TO THE SIXTH ROW. ALVARO BAUTISTA IS SLOWED BY TRAFFIC
Brno (Czech Republic), 15 August 2015 – The last day of practice at Brno before the race ended on a positive note for Aprilia Racing Team Gresini. Stefan Bradl rode his RS-GP to the sixteenth spot on the starting grid, less than a second behind the top-10 after showing good pace in the last practice session. The German will therefore start from the best spot on the sixth row.
Alvaro Bautista, who finished FP3 this morning with the sixteenth best time, was unlucky in the qualifiers. First a problem with chattering and then some slow riders ahead of him on the track kept him from taking full advantage of the soft tyre during his two flying laps. The Spanish rider, who is using the new frame that Aprilia introduced this weekend, finished his Saturday in nineteenth position (seventh row).
ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Director)
“Today was a prolific day in terms of development, ending with good performance in the qualifiers. We are quite pleased, especially with the time gaps, which place us just behind the points zone. Tomorrow morning in the warmup session we’ll try a few more new solutions which will hopefully take us another step forward.”
FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
“Bradl worked methodically and in the qualifiers he put a good time on the sheets, so I’m pleased about that. Bautista also had a good qualifying session. It’s a shame that he wasn’t able to exploit his two flying laps, otherwise he could have finished with a better position. We should also remember that Alvaro is doing some tests with some changes to the chassis. As I said, now we can count on a team that works well together and the atmosphere in the garage is excellent. Now we’ll wait for the race tomorrow to continue our positive trend.”
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“Today definitely went better than yesterday. We worked well, trying a few things that should help us in the more flowing parts of the track. We improved, not as much as I would have liked, but we did take a step forward. In FP4 we tried a hard tyre on the front since the medium blend left a few doubts in terms of duration. It actually seems more stable but I didn’t really get a positive feeling from it, so I think tomorrow we’ll go back to the previous solution. During the qualifiers with the soft tyre I felt some abnormal chattering that kept me from pushing to the limit. Besides that, in the second lap where I could have improved by a few tenths of a second I ran into slow traffic on the track. Tomorrow will be a difficult race because when the tyre starts to wear we always struggle a bit to maintain pace but as always we’ll do the best job possible.”
STEFAN BRADL
“I’m pleased with the results of the qualifiers. On my first try I got a good lap in straight away. Actually I’d like to get below the 1’57 mark but in any case we got close. Unfortunately in the second flying lap I wasn’t able to improve because I started feeling some vibrations with the second soft tyre. I’d like to thank the team for their hard work. The bike seems easier to ride now in my flying lap during qualifiers, but we still need to improve our race pace which remains our top priority. I hope I’ll be able to battle for a better placement tomorrow than the one I finished with at Indianapolis.”
