TWO APRILIAS ON THE SIXTH ROW AT THE GP OF THE AMERICAS
The Aprilia RS-GP prototypes ridden by Espargaró and Iannone will start side by side from the sixth row of the starting grid in the GP of the Americas, the third round of the MotoGP Championship which will be held tomorrow on the Austin track.
It is the result of a day of qualifying rendered abnormal by weather conditions which, due to a violent storm in the morning, caused the third timed practice session to be cancelled. This meant that the action skipped directly to FP4, freezing the situation from Friday which, after a promising start in FP1, had left both Aleix and Andrea out of the top ten.
The Q1 session gave the Aprilia Racing Team riders the sixth (Espargaró in 2’06.464) and seventh (Iannone in 2’06.527) place which earned them the sixteenth and seventeenth spots on the grid respectively.
On a traditionally difficult track for the Italian bike, Aleix and Andrea will be looking for a top-ten finish, counting on a race pace that seemed to be better than the qualifiers would indicate.