WORLD SUPERBIKE TAKES ON THE DUTCH ASSEN CIRCUIT
BOTH LEON HASLAM AND JORDI TORRES PROGRESS IN LEAPS AND BOUNDS IN THE TWO SESSIONS
Assen (Holland), 17 April 2015 – The first day of practice at Assen had the Team Aprilia Racing – Red Devils riders improving in leaps and bounds between the two sessions. More than one second improvement for Leon Haslam and an impressive second and a half for Jordi Torres are a symptom of the excellent job done in the garages on the Aprilia RSV4 RFs, a process that will continue today with the customary technical debriefing which should lead to more results tomorrow and in the races on Sunday.
The demanding Dutch track was unable to intimidate expert rider Leon Haslam who concentrated on the job at hand without pushing too hard, leading his mechanics in the right direction. The improvement in the two timed sessions and especially the feeling Leon had on the bike are encouraging for Superpole tomorrow and the races on Sunday.
Haslam rode his RSV4 RF to fourth place in the combined standings with his best lap stopping the clock at 1’36.48.
Leon Haslam: “We made some good progress today. I also used the softer tyre for the first time. We are working well in terms of race strategy rather than on our flying lap. There are still various things we need to work out to get past a few situations that we still need to iron out. We aren’t far from the front runners and slowly but surely we’re improving, so that means we are on the right path. Tomorrow I think we’ll achieve our goal in terms of performance.”
One of the particularities of Assen is that there are no real reference points. It is a flat track where any mistake setting up a line can penalise the rider for an entire sector. Precisely for this reason Jordi Torres, in his rookie year on the Aprilia V4 reigning world champion bike, had to adjust his braking points and adapt to the Superbike lines. This was the focus for the morning session, where Jordi put in a lot of consecutive laps precisely to get comfortable on the track, whereas in the afternoon he concentrated on the actual setup, ending the day in sixth place.
Jordi Torres: “Our biggest step today was definitely the rider. I used the first session to get my bearings. Here at Assen I had only lapped in Moto2 and I realised quickly that the braking points and the lines are completely different. In terms of the settings I think the RSV4 is already at a good level. I’m sure we can still improve but it will be up to me to make the difference. Today was a good day.”
