MOTOGP – SIXTH AND SEVENTH ROW FOR THE APRILIAS AT SILVERSTONE
Qualifying complicated by the rain ended the second day of the Silverstone weekend, the day that decides the starting grid for the race tomorrow. After an FP3 session that showed progress compared with yesterday, Alvaro Bautista (also victim of a fall) and Stefan Bradl had to adjust the settings on their Aprilia RS-GP machines to deal with the foul weather.
Alvaro Bautista showed good progress in FP4, finishing with the 14th best time.
The Aprilia Racing Team Gresini therefore tackled Q1 in wet track conditions, a rather complex situation given how little time there was to find the specific setup. Stefan stopped the clock with a best time of 2’19.115, which earns him the second slot on the sixth row. Bautista, with a best lap of 2’20.299, finished qualifying in nineteenth place.
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“We worked primarily on the electronics in order to make the bike easier to handle and we were able to improve a bit, especially in terms of pace. Unfortunately, in FP3 I had a crash on turn 12, where a lot of riders fell, and that kept us from trying a few changes. With the rain in FP4, I tried to gain confidence in the wet, also in view of qualifying. The weather seemed to be improving slightly, so we decided to start Q1 with used tyres and change them later, but it actually started raining harder and I struggled a bit to get the tyre up to temperature in the three flying laps”.
STEFAN BRADL
“Today was not an easy day either for us. Unfortunately, in FP3 a technical problem kept me from using the bike with the updated frame. That was a pity because we need to take it out in order to develop the bike. In the wet we had to take care. It did not take much at all to make a mistake. In any case, I tried to achieve as much as possible. I would have like to start a few positions farther forward, but given the situation, I think it would have been difficult to do better. I just hope that tomorrow the conditions will be stable so we can work without complications”.
