GP France: GOOD RESULT, NOT AS GOOD RACE
Finishing in tenth position in this Sunday’s round five at the historic Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans, Stefan Bradl scored an important result and valuable six points for the championship.
After such a difficult weekend in France, the 26-year-old German factory rider in Aprilia was happy about the result though he was less pleased how the race went. But most of all Bradl was upset about an incident with Spaniard rider Hector Barbara in which the brake lever was affected due to this collision. However, the entire package with Bradl and the still all-new 2016 prototype of the Aprilia RS-GP weren’t as competitive after a change to the bike’s setting didn’t bring the improvement for which the team was looking.
#6 Stefan BRADL (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, Aprilia) – 10th (World Championship position 12th, 23 points):
“At the end of the day, P10 is an important result for me as well for Aprilia. In addition, we collected valuable six points which we take with us. But honestly speaking, I’m absolutely not satisfied about my race. The main reason was all these many problems we endured throughout the weekend. We weren’t able to improve neither from Friday to Saturday nor from Saturday to Sunday. Beyond that I made a mistake this morning as I crashed during warm up session. Fortunately, it doesn’t affect us in any way although we made a big change to the bike for the race without any helpful information. But everything goes wrong. During the final stages of the race I didn’t have any feeling for the front at all. The situation was at worst in corner entry. Anyway, with this measure we have certainly reached the opposite to our plans. Obviously it’s a pity because we have worsened in this area for the race. But meanwhile the main problem was an incident with Barbera when he passed me in turn two. However, during the chicane I was at the level with him, but he ran wide and, though he saw me but he put up the bike and we touched. At this moment my brake lever was put downwards. During the following two laps I tried to adjust it in way to be able to use it again which also succeeded in a way. However, this incident did destroy my race because I lost the contact to the riders in front of me. I think, if this didn’t happen, the race could have gone in another way. However, in the end the outcome hardly would have been different because we weren’t eye-to-eye with our competitors this weekend. In any case, Le Mans has brought many valuable insights on which we can build for Mugello and in any case we will continue with the same package we used here in Le Mans which means that we will race with all these new development parts which Aprilia has brought to the Jerez test. The Mugello track is layout wise completely different and a better circuit too so I hope that our bike will perform there unlike better than here.”
MotoGP™ Grand Prix de France – Race Classification after 28 Laps:
1 #99 Jorge LORENZO / SPA / Movistar Yamaha MotoGP / Yamah / 43´51.290
2 #46 Valentino ROSSI / ITA / Movistar Yamaha MotoGP / Yamaha / +10.654
3 #25 Maverick VINALES / SPA / Team SUZUKI ECSTAR / Suzuki / +14.177
10 #6 Stefan BRADL / GER / Aprilia Racing Team Gresini / Aprilia / +54.502
MotoGP™ World Standings:
1 #99 Jorge LORENZO / SPA / Movistar Yamaha MotoGP / Yamaha / 90
2 #93 Marc MARQUEZ / SPA / Repsol Honda Team / Honda / 85
3 #46 Valentino ROSSI / ITA / Movistar Yamaha MotoGP / Yamaha / 78
12 #6 Stefan BRADL / GER / Aprilia Racing Team Gresini / Aprilia 23
Next race: 22 May, Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, Scarperia / Italy