Savadori pleased with top five in race one

Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori has expressed his delight at his first top five finish of the season, the Italian battling hard for fifth spot in the opening race of the Dutch round on Saturday.

Savadori has been absent since his highside crash in the early stages of the second outing in Thailand, the Aprilia rider injuring his neck in the incident. Despite the lengthy time off, Savadori had been quick all weekend.

The Italian put his RSV4 fourth on the grid, which was transformed to third after Jonathan Rea’s penalty, and he made good use of this opportunity, Savadori getting his elbows out in a hard fight for the top five.

“It was a good race for us today, and good for me because I haven’t raced since Thailand last month,” he said.

“I was happy with the qualifying we did, and the front row was a good place to be.”

Savadori’s pace in the early stages was strong, but he soon ran into rear tyre troubles and began losing ground. With several riders dropping out in front of him over the course of the 21-lap encounter, the Aprilia rider dug deep in the final laps to grab fifth position.

This will see his start from the front row once again in second for tomorrow’s race, and he feels more pace can be unlocked from his RSV4 in the morning warm-up.

“I pushed hard at the beginning of the race and made a good gap to the guys behind me, but then I started to have problems with rear grip and lost some positions,” he added.

“I still made some quick laps, though, and fifth was a good finish. I need to look at the data with my crew chief and engineers tonight to see where we can improve.

“There is another warm-up session tomorrow, though, so we still have time to test and find some speed, because for sure we can be quicker.”

Team-mate Eugene Laverty enjoyed a similarly positive Saturday in Holland. The Northern Irishman is feeling happier on his Aprilia now that he is running modified parts from the machine he rode several seasons ago.

Despite his front tyre dropping off in the closing stages and a small technical issue, Laverty made it to the chequered flag in eighth spot. He will start from sixth as a result in the second race.