MotoGP: Crash for Lowes, Espargaro impressed with Aprilia on first day of testing

Sam Lowes’ first official day in the MotoGP class didn’t get off to the best of starts as a crash on Tuesday afternoon saw the British rider taken to hospital for checks.

The Moto2 race winner, who has tested the Aprilia several times already this year, completed 63 laps before crashing out this afternoon setting a fastest time of 1’33.359 to place 24^th on the timesheets at the end of day one. A team official confirmed to the press that he had been taken to hospital and it is not known whether he will participate in the remainder of the test. 

Meanwhile, Lowes’ new Aprilia team-mate Aleix Espargaro was positively surprised with Aprilia’s RS-GP after making the switch from Suzuki.

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The Spaniard made no secret that he came into his new venture expecting a tough challenge, but found things were better than he initially expected as testing got underway.

“I’m pretty happy overall as maybe I was expecting something worse, but the bike is really competitive,” he said. “From the first impressions I really liked a lot, obviously there are areas we need to work on but I’m happy. The bike is really stable, it is turning better than I expected but we do have to improve that. Our biggest target for next season is to improve acceleration, at high RPM the bike is fast but we need to improve the initial acceleration.”

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