Bautista and Melandri, even on dodgy asphalt, worked hard in free practice developing the RS-GP bikes

Termas de Rio Hondo (Argentina), 17 April 2015 - Just a week after the American round in Austin, which brought Aprilia Racing Team Gresini their first point thanks to Alvaro Bautista's placing, MotoGP begins practice for the Argentinian GP. The first two sessions on the Termas de Rio Hondo track were conditioned by the condition of the tarmac. The quite dirty and not very rubberised surface create a particular tyre wear situation.

Even in these conditions Bautista (11th in the morning and 22nd in the second session) and Melandri (19th in FP1 and 24th in FP2) moved forward working on the evolution of the RS-GP bikes. In particular Marco, who tested some brand new solutions on his bike, found a better riding feeling compared to all the previous outings.

ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)
"After the first laps with the best performance tyre we are losing a lot of traction straight away. Alvaro could also have improved on his flying lap but clearly that cannot be our primary goal. We need to work on this tomorrow although a lot depended on the track which is really destroying the soft tyres quickly in these conditions. Even with the asphalt situation we had Marco made some encouraging progress in terms of his general riding feeling."

FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
"This track gave us these problems last year already. Until it gets rubberised it creates problems for the tyres in just a few laps. I think tomorrow things will change. We'll wait for the next sessions to see what the real values are on the track."

ALVARO BAUTISTA
"The track was very hungry today and it ate up all the tyres. Already from this morning we had to use two sets of tyres and in the afternoon I went out with a used tyre. By the end I really didn't have any rubber left to try and improve on my time. Tomorrow we'll have to work hard to improve our grip anyway. But I also think that a better asphalt grip situation will be a great help since such poor traction particularly penalises us."

MARCO MELANDRI
"For the first time I had a decent session. The team did a great job trying some different ideas and implementing some setups that we had never tried before, catering to my needs, and I found a bike that I was able to ride better. Naturally there is still a lot of work to do but it is an improvement. The track conditions will change gradually as it gets more rubberised, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow."