Ce Japanese Grand Prix was more than a cold shower for the Aprilia troops. However, they had begun to entertain the beginnings of hope of a good performance at the end of the first day. A Friday when Aleix Espargaró explained that his RS-GP was so well balanced when braking that it could well do well on this demanding Motegi track. But what followed was hell. With, as an epilogue, an epidemic of tire problems that will have to be analyzed…
Nineteenth and twenty-first at the end of qualifying, twentieth and twenty-fifth at the end of warm-up, it's nothing to say that Aprilia was far from the mark when it came to its Sunday race in Japan. And yet, Alex Espargaro had started his Japanese performance with a tenth time in FP1…
But then everything went from Charybdis to Scylla with a bonus fall for the Spaniard during the warm-up session. The rest was like a coup de grace: from the start, Aleix had to face a front grip problem which strongly influenced the first laps, until forcing him to return to the pits on the seventh lap .
He explains : " The front tire pressure and temperature dashboard alarm popped up, showing abnormal levels. It was impossible to steer, the wheel kept braking even in a straight line and I had to give up. This weekend was not easy for us, we have to analyze the situation carefully to understand what happened ».
At Redding who crossed the finish line nineteenth, we added: “ I had the best start of the season. I recovered many positions and felt good in the first laps. The handling was good. At one point the front tire started to move. I chose the soft because the medium was not usable, I also tried it in warm-up without result. I was doing pretty well, but I started to lose grip at the rear as well and had to settle for finishing the race ».
The boss on the ground Roman Albesian who had glimpsed the hope of getting back on KTM in the manufacturers' championship concluded this assessment this way: “ we will have many technical innovations for 2019 and we were lucky to take a fast driver like Andrea Iannone ". Suffice it to say that the last three races are likely to be long at Aprilia…
Japanese Grand Prix, Motegi, MotoGP, J.3: classification.
| 1 | 93 | Marc Márquez | Honda | 42'36.438 |
| 2 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | +1.573 |
| 3 | 42 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | +1.720 |
| 4 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | +6.413 |
| 5 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | Ducati | +6.919 |
| 6 | 5 | johann zarco | Yamaha | +8.024 |
| 7 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | +13.330 |
| 8 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | Honda | +15.582 |
| 9 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | +20.584 |
| 10 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | Yamaha | +24.985 |
| 11 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Honda | +25.931 |
| 12 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | KTM | +26.875 |
| 13 | 44 | Pol Espargaró | KTM | +27.069 |
| 14 | 89 | Katsuyuki NAKASUGA | Yamaha | +32.550 |
| 15 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | +37.718 |
| 16 | 10 | Xavier SIMEON | Ducati | +39.583 |
| 17 | 81 | Jordi TORRES | Ducati | +39.839 |
| 18 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | +42.698 |
| 19 | 45 | Scott REDDING | Aprilia | +49.943 |
| 20 | 12 | Thomas LUTHI | Honda | +52.707 |
| 21 | 50 | Sylvain GUINTOLI | Suzuki | + 1'01.848 |
| Not Classified | ||||
| 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | 10 lapses | |
| 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | 12 lapses | |
| 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 14 lapses | |
| 41 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 18 lapses |
