ALEIX ESPARGARÓ COMES BACK FROM THE TWENTIETH SPOT ON THE GRID FOR A POINTS FINISH IN AUSTRIA
The expected comeback ride arrived and took Aleix Espargaró into the points zone for the Austrian GP, recovering from the twentieth spot on the starting grid and finishing in thirteenth place, which was certainly a positive result on a weekend turned difficult for the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini after the qualifiers on Saturday.
In any case, the potential of the RS-GP and the Spanish rider were not affected by the race today. Even in difficult conditions, Aleix was able to demonstrate an absolutely competitive pace after the initial laps, whereas the team skilfully took advantage of the morning warmup to reacquire feeling (something for which the ninth place in that session is a testament). This was a technical response that lets the team leave Austria with a finish in the points, fourth place in the manufacturer standings and motivation to return, as early as at Silverstone, to the levels that have been demonstrated up to now.
Sam Lowes, after a good start, suffered particularly from rear tyre wear which forced him to slow his pace considerably, settling for finishing the race in twentieth place.
ALEIX ESPARGARO’
“I suffered a lot, especially at the beginning when I found myself basically in last place. We struggled in acceleration from low speed, so I had to make up ground in the braking sections. After a few laps I began to feel better, overtaking a lot of riders and setting a good pace. I am not satisfied with my final position. We have the potential to finish much farther forward, but I think that the real problem was yesterday’s qualifiers. Starting twentieth on a track like this one makes everything more difficult. We earned points, which is obviously not our goal, but an unlucky race can happen along the way as we grow.”
SAM LOWES
“The first part of the race was the best since I’ve been with Aprilia. Both in terms of position and in terms of pace, I was not far behind my teammate and I was making up ground. Unfortunately, we made the wrong rear tyre choice. I felt good at the start with the soft, but then the grip faded and I basically had to manage the last 12 laps just to make it to the chequered flag. It’s too bad about the result, but for us this is the umpteenth important lesson on managing the weekend. Now I am thinking about my home race at Silverstone, where I will be highly motivated.”
ROMANO ALBESIANO – APRILIA RACING MANAGER
“The weekend started well on Friday, whereas on Saturday we went down the wrong technical path in terms of bike settings which did not give us the responses we had hoped for. This conditioned our qualifiers. This morning in warmup we went back to a standard setup that Aleix knows well and performance re-stabilised. In the race we gambled with the hard tyre on the rear and we had never used it during the weekend, so Aleix had to get used to it in the early laps. Our final performance is obviously not in line with our actual level, but we count on resuming our upward trend already in Silverstone.”
FAUSTO GRESINI – TEAM MANAGER
“E’ stato un weekend difficile, ma sono contento della reazione del team. Come si dice in gergo abbiamo estratto il coniglio dal cilindro, peccato per la posizione di partenza di Aleix e per i primi giri dove abbiamo perso terreno. Andare a punti in un weekend come questo lo vedo come un buon risultato, seppure al di sotto di quelle che sono le nostre possibilità”.
