MotoGP Qatar: Alex De Angelis “Doing more today was difficult, the others had too fast a pace”

MotoGP 2015 GP Qatar Aprilia Iodaracing – Alex De Angelis he closed the first GP of the season in 20th place, preceded only by Marco Melandri. For the Ioda team rider, riding his Aprila Open, the Losail race was in effect a new test. Never before this evening, in fact, had De Angelis and the team covered a long run as challenging as this one together. In the first phase of the race the San Marino driver tried to stay in the group, then after the third lap, De Angelis, hindered by Loris Baz, lost contact with the other riders.

“Certainly doing more than what we achieved tonight would have been really difficult – said Alex De Angelis – because the group in front of me had a pace too fast for me. The first part of the race was good, especially compared to bikes that have about thirty horsepower more than ours, so we're making the best use of what we have at the moment. The step I would like to take in the next race is to improve the second part of the race because when the tires lose grip the chattering increases and we need to understand the reason because if this problem does not present itself at the beginning we can find a way to prevent it from appearing out later. It was an excellent weekend where we showed up on more than one occasion and doing more would have been really difficult. The next race will be on a circuit with lots of restarts, perhaps it will be the most difficult one of the whole season. We won't have any technical innovations in Texas, so we will also use that race as a big test. What remains is the great personal satisfaction of having been the first among the Aprilias. But if we look to the future this doesn't make me feel comfortable because if they were going strong and a bike like theirs were to arrive we could think of an important step for us too. But Aprilia is a company that works and that has won world championships, I'm sure they will soon be competitive."

Photos: Alex Farinelli