MotoGP: Aprilia looking to pick up where they left off

Aprilia MotoGP boss Romano Albesiano says that the team are going into this weekend’s Dutch TT at Assen with a clear goal – to start where they left off not only at the last round of this year’s series at Barcelona but also with where they left off last year at Assen.

Running a completely new Grand Prix spec machine this year rather than last year’s superbike-derived machine, the Italian nonetheless says that there’s loads of potential they can take from last year’s pace.

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“We had a good feeling on the track at Assen already last year and now we are arriving with a completely new bike that will be on this track for the first time, but we intend to resume with that feeling to build another good weekend.

“Looking at what happened in Barcelona, we need to concentrate on improving our performance in qualifying most of all so that we can take the best possible advantage of the race pace that we have demonstrated. Moving up a few positions on the starting grid would make our goal easier to achieve, which is still to battle for a top 10 finish.”

However, despite the bosses’ confidence, rider Alvaro Bautista admits that it won’t all be plain sailing in the Netherlands for the squad.

“Assen is a very particular track where the first, slow part alternates with a second, fast part and a lot of direction changes. It is always hard to find a setting that lets you go fast in both situations.

“After our performance at Barcelona, where we worked well, we hope that we can do it again, even improving on the flying lap in qualifying. It will be a new track for the RS-GP and we need to keep working with the usual goal: a top 10 finish.”

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