Demanding Friday for Aprilia Racing at Balaton Park

Marco Bezzecchi, who did a good sixth-place time in the morning FP1 session, was unable to confirm the same performance in the practice session, finishing with the twelfth-best time, thereby missing a spot in Q2 by just 83 thousandths of a second. The Italian rider will therefore have to go through Q1 to earn a spot in Q2.

JORGE MARTÍN
“I didn’t think I would have been so close to going through to Q2. I’m pleased with the day overall. Getting into Q2 wasn’t even really my priority; I’m working on my path and I’m rather pleased today. I think we took a good step forward. I don’t think we’re far off in terms of pace, but on the flying lap, I still don’t have the confidence I need to push to the limit. I’m satisfied with the result. We need to keep insisting and soon we’ll be able to battle.”

MARCO BEZZECCHI
“This was certainly not one of our best days. We struggled a bit on this track, especially in braking. Time attacks are maybe where we’re suffering the most. When we don’t have everything dialed in perfectly with pace and with the medium tyre, putting on the soft doesn’t make a big difference. We’ll focus on working this evening to get everything sorted for Saturday.”

PAOLO BONORA
“This is a stop-and-go track where we knew we’d have to work hard to find the ideal set-up for the bike. Nevertheless, we are confident that, after analysing the data, we’ll be able to identify some solutions, as has already happened in recent GP races. Our riders’ comments were clear and quite similar to one another, so we have a clear idea of which direction to go in order to improve.”