The Aprilia bikes are generally struggling at the Malaysian GP and proof of this was today’s 12th place for Aleix Espargaro, who knows the current version of the Italian manufacturer’s bike like no other. The rider was happy on the one hand, but worried on the other about the apparent lack of development of the bike compared to his rivals.
The Spaniard began by recalling the difficulties he experienced this morning and how, despite being as fast as ever at Sepang, he had a lot of problems in qualifying:
– Yesterday I lost a lot of time in terms of setting up the bike and I felt very bad with the front fork, I crashed four times and then this morning we were back to normal and I was even very fast, I even did the Aprilia record here in Malaysia in 1’58.0 but even that wasn’t enough to get into Q2 and then starting 13th it’s very difficult. We don’t have any speed here, we lack a bit of acceleration and we have a lot of trouble stopping the bike. All the Aprilia bikes are having the same problems, it’s difficult.
On whether Aprilia’s progress has slowed down, the #41replied: ‘Either it has slowed down or all the other manufacturers continue to improve because I was faster than ever here, 58.0s, which after yesterday’s disaster is a very good lap time but the others are half a second faster. We can look at it in a different way, but the others have improved more and we haven’t, and we have to find a solution. We’re missing a bit of competitiveness.
Aleix then recalled his position in the standings: ‘We’re fifth in the championship, I think that’s a good result but we’re aiming for much more and at the moment it seems a long way’.