Underwhelming sprint race for Aprilia Racing in Misano

MAVERICK VIÑALES ELEVENTH AHEAD OF ALEIX ESPARGARÓ

Maverick Viñales, after going straight through to Q2 on Friday, was unable to replicate the same feeling in qualifying, finishing on the eleventh spot of the grid. In the sprint race, the Spanish rider continued to encounter difficulty finding the right feeling with the RS-GP24, finishing eleventh ahead of his teammate.

Aleix Espargaró, forced to go through Q1, barely missed going through to Q2 by just two tenths of a second, which placed him on the fifth row of the starting grid. In spite of a solid pace during the sprint race, the start from behind penalised him and he had to settle for a twelfth-place finish.

MAVERICK VIÑALES
“The feeling we’re having in Misano is quite different from other years, so it’s hard to fully exploit the package we have. Being precise in braking is especially complicated and that takes a lot away from speed in the race. This is a track that demands precision and I’m struggling to find it at the moment. In any case, we are still not far off in terms of race pace, but we need more consistency.”

ALEIX ESPARGARÓ
“My race pace was actually fast, but I couldn’t find the competitiveness that I expected. What penalized me was the start from behind. Qualifying here is extremely important because it is a track where overtaking is difficult. We also struggled quite a bit with the heat. In the final part of the sprint race, I was at my limit physically, and that is something that we need to improve in view of the upcoming races.”

ROMANO ALBESIANO
“A negative result in terms of classification. From a performance point of view, analysing the data, our performance could have warranted better positions. But that is not enough, we need to turn it into results. We paid the price for an unlucky qualifying session for Aleix and a less than optimal one for Maverick. We have to keep working, because clearly, we haven't found the ideal set-up for this track.”