ENCOURAGING QUALIFIERS AT INDIANAPOLIS FOR ALVARO BAUTISTA AND STEFAN BRADL
The Aprilia riders significantly improve their lap times. In the race tomorrow they will start side by side from the sixth row
Indianapolis (USA), 8 August 2015 – On a demanding weekend like few others for the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, the best news arrived just in time during the decisive Q1 session. In fact, both Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista significantly improved their times in the session that decides the starting grid for tomorrow’s race.
With his personal best of 1’33.822, Stefan Bradl rode his RS-GP to the sixth row with the 17th best time, followed just 17 thousandths later by team mate Alvaro Bautista (18th best time and sixth row). Despite the reduced grip and the less than congenial track conditions for the Italian bike, both riders showed grit and determination. At the end of the day they brought home the best possible result.
Tomorrow, where they will be hard at work during the morning warmup and the race, promises to be rather interesting. There is also a chance of rain in the forecast which could reshuffle the entire deck.
ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Director)
“A demanding weekend for us, as usual, given the project we’re working on. In any case I am quite satisfied because we have found a professional rider and a very valuable person in Stefan who, with his indications, is allowing us to focus better on our bike’s weak points. Basically we are struggling in closing out turns. That’s the main problem which then generates others. Thanks to the combined indications of Bradl and Bautista, I think we will be able to speed up our development process. They make an excellent pair. For us this season is still an extraordinary effort in an extremely high level championship but we are really learning a lot.”
FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
“Today both of our riders did an excellent job. Despite this being his début, Stefan showed that he had achieved a good feeling with the bike straight away, putting good times on the sheets. Alvaro also did a good job, so we are satisfied with the way things have gone so far this weekend. We can count on a reinforced team and that definitely helps us in the future, both in terms of results and in terms of developing the bike. Tomorrow will be an important day and I hope we’ll be able to ride a good race.”
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“Today we did various tests trying to improve the setup, to help the RS-GP turn better and to find traction. It wasn’t a huge step forward, but we did manage to make some improvements. In particular the hard front tyre still doesn’t give me the same feeling as the soft one, but it performs better in terms of consistency for the race, so I think that will be our choice for tomorrow. In qualifying I was able to take good advantage of the first tyre, improving my time by half a second, whereas with the second one while I was pushing hard I lost control and even risked crashing. Fortunately nothing happened besides me not being able to make any further improvement on my times. Tomorrow we are expecting a hard race on a track which is difficult for us, also taking the weather into consideration which could change everything. In any case we need to continue working and gathering data.”
STEFAN BRADL
“I am absolutely surprised to have already reached such a good level on my first time out with this bike. It’s true that it didn’t take much for me to adapt to it, but in any case I hope that tomorrow we’ll be able to take another step forward in terms of setup. Today we did a lot of work both on the geometries and on the electronics and the positive thing is that I can feel the changes. That means that we know which direction to go in order to improve. In any case the race tomorrow will be no walk in the park: today I pushed hard in the qualifiers and I could feel that my right wrist is still not at 100%. I’ll do everything I can to be physically fit tomorrow, but it will be hard, also because the tyres will wear, the bike’s performance will change and I still need to learn how to ride it in these conditions, with worn tyres. In any case we have done a great job so far and I hope we’ll be able to ride a good race tomorrow.”
