The first day of practice at Misano in anticipation of the GP race on Sunday had Aprilia improving with Aleix Espargaró finishing out the day in the top ten.

It is a nice result that came after an outstanding FP1 morning session where Aleix finished with the fifth best time at 1’33.762. Encouraged by this result, Aleix worked mainly thinking about the race in the second session, testing setups and tyres at the same time of day as the race. He did not improve on his times, stopping the clock at 1’34.062, but his position in the combined standings was an encouraging ninth place.

Andrea, on the other hand, managed to improve by more than six tenths from one session to the next, finishing FP2 with a time of 1’34.381, not far from Aleix but outside the top ten. Compromising Andrea’s improved performance was a crash in the morning. The blow to his shoulder, which had already troubled him in the past, kept him from finding the good feeling with his RS-GP that he had demonstrated in the tests last week.