QUALIFYING AT ARAGON
SIXTH AND SEVENTH ROW FOR BRADL AND BAUTISTA’S APRILIAS
STEFAN REDEEMS HIMSELF IN QUALIFYING, GOOD RACE PACE FOR ALVARO
Circuito de Aragon (Spain), 26 September 2015 – Stefan Bradl will start the race from the sixth row in the fourteenth round of the MotoGP World Championship to be held at Motorland Aragon. In fact, the German Aprilia Racing Team Gresini rider finished Q1 with the seventh best time (1’49,109) which earns him the seventeenth overall time and the corresponding spot on the starting grid.
Alvaro Bautista, held up during the decisive session by a crash with no consequences for the rider, will start from the seventh row on the grid, after lapping in 1’49,437, giving him the eleventh best time in Q1 and the twenty-first overall time.
Throughout the weekend the riders worked tirelessly on race strategy, above all looking for consistent performance over race distance, which is why they are making no secret of their intentions to improve their positions in the race, as they have done often this season.
ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)
“Stefan reacted very well after being hindered in the morning session by problems with a new clutch part that, in the spirit of our season, we are testing here, but in the end we found a good direction to go for the race as well. Alvaro was penalised by a crash in qualifying but he has worked well throughout the weekend on race pace, so we are confident for the race.”
FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
“It’s a shame about Bautista’s crash at the beginning of the qualifying session. Alvaro could have had a very good Q1, but this obviously compromised his performance. Tomorrow he’ll have to get off the line well and come back during the race. Stefan ran into a few technical troubles but he reacted very well in the qualifiers, putting in a nice lap and giving it his own touch. Hopefully he’ll be luckier tomorrow in the race where we’ll be counting on him to bring home some points as well.”
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“At the beginning of the qualifiers I lost the front end braking hard at the first turn. It’s a shame because we worked very well both yesterday and today. We have a good pace for the race but after the crash I had to use the second bike and I wasn’t able to push as hard as I would have liked for my fast lap. Tomorrow we’ll be starting from the back, so we’ll need to make a good start of it in order to make up a few positions straight away, but we have a good race pace on used tyres and that is very important.”
STEFAN BRADL
“We’re happy with my qualifying despite being slowed down by technical problems and even in FP4 we didn’t have much time to work on the bike and do all the comparative tests that we had planned. In the afternoon we went back to using the old swingarm and in any case the grip situation on the rear improved, so we’ll keep using it tomorrow in the race. However, unfortunately we didn’t have the time we needed to fine tune the setup. So overall I’m happy with the performance in the qualifiers, where I felt very much at ease. Now we still have some work left to get ready for the race.”
