Aleix Espargaro was disappointed to not have had ‘more speed’ from his RS-GP during the Aragon Grand Prix, despite scoring his and Aprilia’s best result of the season.
Espargaro put in a strong weekend performance at Aragon to finish just ten seconds from race winner Marc Marquez in seventh, as well as qualifying in the top five for the first time this season.
The Gresini-run squad has struggled to make progress so far this year and prior to Espargaro’s seventh place in Aragon, their best was ninth in the American GP at the Circuit of the Americas, also scored by the Spaniard.
Aprilia also remain last in the manufacturers standings as KTM have made large steps in their development throughout this season, something the elder of the Espargaro brothers has been highly vocal about.
The many corners that force riders to brake while turning which make up the Aragon layout helped to mask the underlying lack of speed of the RS-GP, as it means the lack of weight at the rear the machine currently has is less prominent than at more conventional circuits.
Espargaro was slightly underwhelmed by his race performance despite having his best run of the season though, as front tyre struggles robbed him of a potentially stronger result.
“I expected to have more speed, I suffered a bit with the front tyre and I didn’t expect that with the feeling we had yesterday, particularly at the beginning of the race as I couldn’t close the corner in the way I could yesterday,” said Espargaro.
“I also couldn’t follow the front guys in the way I wanted, but anyway I did a solid race with a fast pace and only finished four seconds from second position so I’m happy overall.”
Shoulder troubles hold back Iannone
Andrea Iannone backed up his team-mate with a solid 11th place finish to add more points to his tally, but the Italian rued his shoulder injury from Misano as he dropped back in the latter stages.
He was forced to miss the Misano contest after aggravating a previous injury in his shoulder through several fast crashes during practice, and with only a week between the two races he still suffered throughout the Aragon event.
Despite this he managed to get through to Q2 for the first time since joining Aprilia from Suzuki for 2019, and took the chequered flag just 1.4 seconds away from matching his best race result of the year despite struggling with his shoulder for most of the 22 lap contest.
“I started the race pretty well, particularly in the first five laps, I had a strong pace but then I started to struggle with my shoulder,” said Iannone.
“I was in quite a lot of pain and I started to lose time in the braking zones, and I decided not to push to the limit as I thought it’d be really difficult to finish the race, so for sure I focussed on managing the situation with my shoulder through the rest of the race.
“In the end we came home 11th, which was not as much as I wanted but I think it was the maximum I could have achieved in my physical condition, we need to continue to work but I enjoyed the battles throughout the race.”
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