ALEIX ESPARGARÓ CRASHES AND MISSES THE CHANCE FOR A GOOD PLACEMENT
SCOTT REDDING RIDES HIS RS-GP TO A POINTS FINISH WITH A VERY REGULAR RACE
Aleix Espargaró compromised his chances for a good placement in the Spanish MotoGP race with a crash. Forced to start from the seventh row after less than positive qualifiers and due to a penalty incurred during warm up (when he involuntarily found himself on Jorge Lorenzo’s line) which relegated him three positions farther back, Aleix was in a position where he had to overtake a lot of riders straight away.
With a decidedly improved feeling astride his Aprilia compared to Friday and Saturday, it only took him a few laps to catch up with Redding, Bautista, Rins, Pol Espargaró and Nakagami. However, shortly after overtaking the Japanese rider, he lost the front end and wound up in the gravel.
Scott Redding, after a weekend of increasing his confidence with the RS-GP, rode an intelligent race. After finding a good pace, he maintained a very regular rhythm which allowed him to move up several positions and, also aided by a few crashes, finished the race in a good 12th place.
ALEIX ESPARGARO’“One of my most difficult weekends. Usually on this track I am able to be competitive, but not this time. We made some significant changes to the RS-GP compared to yesterday and, to be honest, I felt a lot better, both in warm up and in the race. Unfortunately, everything was compromised by the qualifiers yesterday and the penalty this morning just added to that. I started very far back and I recovered a lot of positions straight away, but unfortunately then I had a stupid sliding crash on a turn where I did not expect that I could have crashed. The tests tomorrow will be fundamental for us. We need to change something in terms of settings in order to come out of this complicated period.”
SCOTT REDDING“It wasn’t a bad race. Everyone was having trouble with the grip, whereas for me the situation was similar to other races. Generally, throughout the entire weekend I have felt better in the afternoon in conditions similar to the ones today. We changed the tyre choice just before the start and today it was the right move. I maintained my pace for all 24 laps, doing almost the entire race behind Pol Espargaró. I would have tried to overtake him toward the end, but a bit of chattering at the front, the same as I had felt this morning before crashing, convinced me to hold off and bring home the result.”
