After a weekend always spent among the first in all practice and qualifying sessions, Aleix Espargaró he confirmed himself in the race finishing in fourth place in a very close finish that saw the first four enclosed in just over 2 seconds. After a good start Aleix fought in the positions close to the podium managing to get the better of Rins, Mir and Marc Marquez and managing to grab, but not overtake, his brother Pol for the podium.
Aleix thus achieved a great result, one of the best in the history of Aprilia in MotoGP, which also reaffirms the value of the RS-GP 2022, the brand new V4 that made its debut in the recent winter tests and capable of confirming the good seen in the first race in the preseason tests. In fact, Aleix finished with the second best time in the race and was among the first in terms of top speed. Maverick Viñaleswhile still far from the results that are within the reach of his talent, he was able to react to the results of the tests and qualifications in which he had never found the right feeling with the bike on this track and settled on his pace in the race, also thanks to some crashes in front of him, he climbed from the eighth row up to the twelfth position that earned him his first championship points in the ’22 season.
“Touching a podium so closely can seem like a disappointment, however I am very satisfied with our weekend and today’s race. The times show that I was among the fastest on the track, unfortunately I lost a few key tenths in the fight with Marc and Joan. And in the end I think the situation with our tires was better than my brother and Brad, but a burr at Turn 4 prevented me from trying the attack on the finish. In any case, the Aprilia is there, here we are! It will be an extraordinary championship where we will certainly be able to fight with the best drivers and the best manufacturers in the world“Said Espargaró.
Maverick Viñales: “It is obviously a disappointing result, my expectations and those of the team are certainly not these but I have never had the right feeling with the front and with the corner entry. We have a lot of work ahead of us, we need to deepen our knowledge of this bike, the tests have given us some sensations that we obviously have to rediscover. In the race I didn’t make any mistakes, I didn’t have any major drops in the tire but I wasn’t even able to have an incisive pace. It is not what we want and what we know we can achieve“.
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