Aleix Espargaró had discovered his Aprilia before the winter break and the Suzuki defector was very pleasantly surprised by his new Italian. Heaps praise on the chassis of the RS-GP, it is in the hope of finding the same balance, but with a little more engine power, as the brother of a rival Pol at KTM went for three days of tests to Sepang. A satisfactory exercise, but a surprise is promised for Australia.
To Aleix Espargaró, the tests in Malaysia resulted in honorable times and a simulated race unfortunately aborted by a fall. On the timesheet covering three days of work, we find him ranked thirteenth, seven tenths behind the Yamaha of Casa Particular in Viñales, thanks to a time of 2'00.108.
Enough to be reassured about the potential of the RS-GP: “ I am happy with these three days in Sepang. I like the 2017 version of the RS-GP and there has been progress since the last test in Valencia. We still have to win something to keep up with the best machines, but the frame has kept all its strong points ».
And this something is located in the engine: “ we still need to work on the power and the way it is distributed. We must improve stability during acceleration phases. But the frame and electronics are definitely good ».
« Overall it's positive. The people at Aprilia have worked really well and we must continue in this direction for the next tests ". This next outing will take place in Australia, near Phillip Island which will resonate with the noise of MotoGP from February 15 to 17. A deadline where the Noale firm could well create a surprise.
To work on this sought-after stability with the disappearance of acceleration for all the protagonists at the same time as the fins, Aprilia could well produce a new fairing. On GPone, Aleix specifies in fact: “ at the Perugia wind tunnel, they are working on a strange fairing that we will use in Australia. It would allow us to find 60% of the effects produced by the ailerons. ". We can't wait to find out.
