MotoGP | IRTA Thailand Test Day 2: A.Espargarò, “We suffer in the first two half-times”

IRTA test, Aprilia Gresini – The second day of testing on the Buriram track in Thailand was a session of great work in the garage for the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini. Between one exit and another sA lot of work went into both installing new components and working on the setup. On both sides of the garage the direction in which to work seems quite clear. If Aleix needs to improve in the first two sectors, Scott identifies braking as the most limiting factor at the moment. The data collected so far will be analyzed in the usual technical briefings at the end of the day, on the basis of which the moves for the last test session tomorrow will be decided. Aleix Espargaro completed 61 laps today, the best of which in 1'31.130, while teammate Scott Redding recorded his best performance in 1'31.637 at the twentieth of the 63 total laps.

Here are the words of Aleix Espargarò: “A complicated day, we suffer especially in the first two half-times, where even if I try very hard I can barely change things. In the other two sectors we are closer to the best, even the top-10 is not far away but I can't be satisfied with the seventeenth time. I don't know if with the material available in these tests we will be able to make a step, we will certainly try."

Here are Scott Redding's impressions: "Today we worked on the 2018 bike, trying new components like a swingarm and front forks. We managed to improve but there are still aspects we can grow on. I lose when braking, I can't slow the bike down as I would like and it's visible when we compare the data with Aleix. We are doing a lot of testing, this explains the long breaks in the garage between one outing and another. The goal is to put together a package with the solutions that prove to work best for me”.

Photo: A.Farinelli/Motorionline