by VALERIO BARRETTA
Aprilia, bitter taste in mouth after Silverstone
Looking at the return of MotoGP to the track, it was thought that Aleix Spargaro could aspire to the podium at Silverstone, and yesterday’s supersonic pole position seemed to confirm it. Massimo RiverCEO of the Noale-based company, had however dampened the enthusiasm, stating that the clear favourite for today’s race would be Ducati. The race, unfortunately for Rivola, proved him right: Ducati pokerissimo, with Espargaró relegated to sixth place and an anonymous Maverick Viñales 13th.
Today’s result is a wake-up call also because Espargaró has always been very strong at Silverstone, but today in the second part of the race he collapsed under the blows of the Ducatis, first losing contact with the podium area and then being overtaken by Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio. The tires are the ones to blame, or rather the work that Aprilia has been doing on the tires since Friday.
Rivola’s words
“There is a clear trend since we returned to Europe. We are often and willingly in the front row and we defend ourselves quite well in the Sprint. Then in the long race, from halfway through the GP onwards, we are clearly not competitive enough. There is a clear issue of performance management, especially related to tyre wear. We definitely need to focus on this, perhaps also in the weekend planning, even at the risk of having to go through Q1 every now and then, but we probably need more information already on Friday“, this is his comment on Sky Sports MotoGP. “As soon as we put the bike on the track, we are fast, but then we tend to ‘stall’ especially on the issue of tire life. The problem is the setup – both mechanical and electronic – and how we manage the race weekends. We are doing something wrong, or rather Ducati is doing something particularly positiveThey took advantage of the tests in Barcelona, which is a track with little grip, to make a leap forward, they succeeded and so well done to them, now it’s our turn“.
“Can Martin lend a hand? It’s clear that we’re banking a lot on a rider like Jorge, who is demonstrating great speed, but Aleix and Maverick are really going very fast here.so the fact that we haven’t put all the pieces together should make us examine our conscience“, he concluded. “Martin and Bezzecchi will arrive next year, I certainly hope they can give us a hand to make us take steps forward, but in these cases there is always a downside: we will have new information, but we lose certain information and a certain performance. Aleix is really going very fast here, he made a track record that he deserves. We hoped at least to be able to get a podium, we knew that on the numbers if we were good we could get fourth, seeing the pace on Friday, but the gap is not there, it is too much and we have to improve it“.
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