SEVENTH AND EIGHTH ROW FOR APRILIA AT PHILLIP ISLAND
The cold asphalt at Phillip Island continues to complicate work for teams and riders. Temperatures on the Australian circuit were once again demanding today, combined with a strong wind the contributes to cooling the Michelin tyres.
Both Aleix Espargaró and Scott Redding made steps forward compared to yesterday, working intensely on the setups for their RS-GP machines. The significant changes increased the feeling for the two Aprilia riders, despite the results of the qualifiers where they finished respectively nineteenth (Aleix) and twentieth (Scott).
ALEIX ESPARGARO’“It was difficult to keep the tyres up to temp again today. With these low temperatures and, above all, with such cold wind, the front tyre in particular suffers. This makes the bike hard to turn and twitchy. We managed to improve between FP3 and FP4, making some drastic changes to the bike’s settings. We found a base to work from, but times and our position are clearly not the ones we were expecting.”
SCOTT REDDING“Both Aleix and I are struggling on this track. Even using the softest compound tyre, I was unable to find the right confidence. It almost seems like I’m using the hardest tyres. For FP4 we made some big changes and I was able to recover a bit of feeling, but in qualifying the gap was reconfirmed because apparently the other riders are able to take advantage of better grip.”
