Since his arrival at Aprilia, we have been proclaiming to anyone who will listen in Noale thatAndrea Iannone is a big investment and his experience will greatly help the development of RS-GP. A wave of enthusiasm which, however, broke on the reefs of a Argentine Grand Prix started in an encouraging way before continuing in complete anonymity. Well almost, because qualifying last and finishing the race in the same place draws attention to yourself. And not for the better…
What happened with Andrea Iannone in Argentina ? The question remains. And it should be studied in light of the performance of his teammate Aleix Espargaro who still finished ninth. The Aprilia is therefore not on the street…
But in the ranks of one Massimo rivola whose focus lately has been on a protest procedure against Ducati, we made the split in the standings at Termas. In 25 laps, Joe the Maniac was taken 38 seconds by the stratospheric winner Marc Márquez, but also 13s by his teammate. SATURDAY, Andrea Iannone remained optimistic despite a disastrous qualification during which he only took last place. Unheard of in his MotoGP career. In fact, he declared: “ I'm not worried, we will be in the race where we left off on Friday“. He finished eleventh in the general classification at the end of this famous Friday.
More Iannone did not find his rhythm on Sunday, and the hoped-for jump in performance did not come. The Italian vegetated in last place for the majority of the 25 laps of the race at Termas de Rio Hondo. He rode between a second and a half to two seconds slower than the top riders, closing the standings more than half a minute behind, while his Aprilia teammate, Aleix Espargaró took ninth place.
Iannone experienced the same problems during the race as on Saturday and a re-adjustment of the engine brake had the exact opposite effect of what he hoped for. The Aprilia rider explains: “ It was strange on this track because our difficulties started when the grip improved. But it's generally the opposite, things go better when there is more grip. ».
This anomaly must first be analyzed. However, the Italian is not worried. “ I know what my potential is and I trust Aprilia's work. If I had started a few rows higher, I could have stayed with the group. I lost a lot of ground on the straights without being able to benefit from the aspiration ", Explain Iannone, despite the fact that there is still a lot of work to be done…
Argentina, MotoGP, J3: classification
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
