Aprilia Racing

The Saturday sessions at Donington Park provided the Aprilia Racing Team with a situation that is decidedly more promising than yesterday's. In the two sessions held before Superpose, Max Biaggi and Eugene Laverty defended themselves well, showing excellent race pace and staying in a top ten list that was characterised by almost insignificant gaps.

Max started Superpole with the firm intention of going through to the top eight and making a play for the front row. And so it was: the Corsair came through the first and second session with relative ease, succeeding in the end (using a racing tire) in putting the fourth time on the board, which earns the front row of the starting grid for the two races tomorrow.

But according to Max Biaggi there is still much work to do: “Compared to yesterday we have definitely improved, but there is still something missing because we are still struggling too hard to get everything to fall into place. The others are ahead of us. They've demonstrated speed on the fast lap and good race pace again today. In order to keep up with them we need better management of the bike which will allow me to be quicker and more consistent right from the start: if we want to be in it to the end, we cannot afford to lose contact with the front runners”.

Eugene Laverty also showed encouraging progress, especially in the last free practice session. In view of the races, the Northern Irish rider's synergy with his RSV4 is good, but once again the Superpole betrayed him. With a qualifying tire Eugene had to give in to a bothersome chattering problem which kept him from being fast in the second session. Laverty will start from the twelfth spot on the grid tomorrow.

“We struggled once again in Superpole. We had some difficulties in all the sessions, but in the last free practice we made significant progress with some changes to the bike's set-up. Unfortunately the soft qualifier caused some annoying chattering that created quite a few problems for me. We'll start from the third row, but I'm encouraged by the fact that I've got a good race pace even after the tire starts to wear.”