The events on Friday in the dry had provided a glimpse of Aprilia’s potential in Silverstone, with Aleix dominating, and after a Saturday conditioned by the rain, today’s race confirmed the Italian team’s feeling on the English circuit.
Aleix rode a substantially flawless race. Aggressive in the early laps, coming back from his twelfth spot on the starting grid, he locked in, even doing the fast lap. Bezzecchi’s crash set up a two-way battle with Bagnaia which really heated up when a few drops of rain demanded caution and cold calculation. In this portion of the race, Espargaró opted for a strategy that proved to be a winning one. He pressed hard closely, but without taking pointless risks, exploiting the better traction of his RS-GP for the decisive overtake on the final lap.
Adding to Aleix’s victory was outstanding overall performance for the Italian brand. On the Team RNF RS-GP, Miguel Oliveira came back to finish fourth ahead of Maverick Viñales, who was in the battle for a podium spot for much of the race. Raùl Fernandez closed out the top 10.
The weekend was further enhanced by the events in Suzuka where, at the end of the 8 Hours, the Team Tatara Aprilia RSV4 1100 finished on the podium with third place in the NST class (twentieth overall).
Aleix
“Today I realized straight away that I’d be able to do well. The Aprilia had traction here and I knew that I had some margin over Bagnaia on some corners. I preferred waiting until the final lap, especially when I saw a few drops of rain. There were some really slippery spots and it would have been easy to make a mistake. Besides that, I noticed that Pecco was managing his tyres and I didn’t want to risk being beaten in the finale. I am extremely happy for myself and for Aprilia. In the first part of the season, we did not earn the points we expected and deserved for various reasons, but we kept believing and working. This is the right path.”
Maverick
“First of all, I’d like to congratulate Aprilia for the fantastic win. It was a great weekend, first with my podium in the Sprint Race and then with Aleix’s victory. We all did an outstanding job! My race started well, but unfortunately, I then lost some valuable seconds in my attempt to overtake Miller. My apologies to him for the manoeuvre, but I was sucked into Alex Marquez’s slipstream and at that point I had no choice but to release the brakes and go in. I pushed extremely hard to close the gap behind the leaders and that limited me in the finale. In any case, I’m satisfied with the weekend. I feel good on the bike and with the team. Our start has improved and we were consistently in the battle for the top spots. We’ll keep working hard, well aware of our great potential.”
- From Piaggio Group / Aprilia Racing
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