Aleix Espargaró, after a perfect weekend, forced to stop in Catalunya race
It was a finale that does not do justice to the commitment and potential Aleix Espargaró and Aprilia demonstrated at Barcelona. The Spanish rider was forced to abandon his home race before the end, during the eighth lap, after starting rather well from the second row of the grid, a spot he had earned yesterday with an excellent fifth place time in qualifying. A technical problem which is currently being assessed stopped him, but it does not overshadow the good work done by Aprilia Racing Team Gresini throughout the recent championship rounds.
In particular, during the Spanish weekend Aleix and his RS-GP were consistently, and with a reassured naturalness, in the stop positions of every session.
Now the team is committed to continuing their work, also solving the inevitable problems that accompany development of the RS-GP project, completely new and still very young, but already capable of achieving an excellent competitive level. The round with the missing result has simply been postponed.
Aleix Espargaró:
“I am very disappointed right now. We did a great job throughout the weekend and today we had the pace to make a play at least for the top-5, maybe even something more. I had a good start, but as early as the first laps I realized that performance was not the same as in warm up. Obviously, I kept going until the bike stopped. A technical problem has stopped us early in two races where we were competitive. It is not pleasant, but these things happen in racing.”