Espargaro & Aprilia end second test ‘at good overall level’

Gresini Racing Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro says the RS-GP will leave Phillip Island ‘at a good overall level’ after a productive three days of testing in Australia.

The Spanish rider put 65 laps on the Aprilia today as he sought to further improve his feeling on the bike. Happy enough with its performance over a race distance, he does admit that there is definitely room to improve.

Espargaro noted that the RS-GP really suited his riding style in terms of braking, which was a major problem for him last year on the Suzuki with the switch to Michelin tyres.

“It (the front-end) reminds me of Bridgestone/Suzuki; I can brake hard and the bike is really stable,” he said following today’s running to crash.net. “It is also close to the Forward Yamaha bike.”

The Spaniard spent much of the test running the older engine as the new one suffered from the same power delivery issues as in Sepang. He’ll try it again in Qatar early next month, as well as the new aerodynamic fairing.

“We are leaving these tests at a good overall level,” he said. “We really worked hard. Today we focused on consistent performance. The RS-GP did very well in race simulations but we know that there is still room for improvement on that front.

“Here at Phillip Island I found a bike that once again suits my riding style in braking, whereas we were able to improve in terms of grip compared with the Sepang tests.

“After talking with the others, I think we should be able to gain something in the turns, especially in the fast corners. Speaking of which, we tried a few changes to the chassis architecture to see if we could find more speed in the centre of the turns.

“In Qatar we will continue in this direction, trying both the new fairing and the evolved engine again to establish the base for the first race weekend.”

Espargaro completed the top 10 on the combined time sheets with a 1m29.361s set on his 61^st tour, putting him just eight tenths of a second off of Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales at the top of the pile.

His team-mate Sam Lowes brought up the rear of the field, but was impressively only 1.6s off of top spot on the 2016 RS-GP as he continues to feel more and more confident on MotoGP machinery.