SIXTH AND EIGHTH ROW FOR THE APRILIAS
DIFFICULT WEATHER TO INTERPRET MAKES THE QUALIFIERS EVEN MORE COMPLICATED FOR ALEIX AND ANDREA
The Aprilia RS-GP machines, performing better and better in races and qualifying, faced a further stumbling block in the Moravian weather. The rain that fell ahead of FP3 quashed any chances Aleix and Andrea may have had of attempting an assault on top-ten positions which would have sent them straight through to Q2. The times, inevitably higher for everyone, froze the positions where they were at the end of qualifying practice on Friday.
Even the Q1 session was held in wet track conditions and, although the lines gradually dried out, it was not enough to avoid using rain tyres. In these conditions, Aleix finished the session in eight place (at 2’06.284) which places him on the eighteenth spot, and therefore the sixth row, of the starting grid tomorrow. Andrea stopped the clock at 2’07.923, which translates into the 23rd place time and the eighth row on the grid.
ALEIX ESPARGARO’
“The conditions today were difficult and I was unable to find the right feeling in the wet. The track changed constantly. Fortunately, tomorrow we’ll be racing in the dry, where I hope to be at a good level. It will be a long race, since we did not have many sessions available to work in. We’ll need to manage tyre wear in the second half. This is a disadvantage for us. I’ll start aggressively straight away and try to recover as many positions as possible.”
ANDREA IANNONE
“It was a difficult day and tomorrow will be hard, but we need to keep looking forward and working hard. Of course, the conditions in both FP3 and in qualifying did not help us. Even a situation of full-on rain would have been much better, but the truth is that we need to improve, believe and give it our all, already as early as tomorrow in the race.”