On the second day of free practice for the Qatar GP the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini was hard at work on new solutions, especially concerning the chassis, on the RS-GP bikes that Alvaro Bautista and Marco Melandri are riding.

The two 45 minute sessions the teams had were used to search for a solid technical base to build on in order to develop the young Aprilia project. In this phase it is also important to rack up some miles and along with them the information to direct the bike's growth.

In the two Friday sessions Bautista (24th at 1'57,107) and Melandri (25th at 1'58,542) put in a total of 51 laps (26 for Alvaro and 25 for Marco). Both Romano Albesiano (Aprilia Racing Manager) and Fausto Gresini (Team Manager) assessed the work done by the teams positively, naturally in light of the youth of the technical project.


ROMANO ALBESIANO (Responsabile Aprilia Racing)

"Today we worked especially on the setups in search of better load transfer so that the rear tyre will perform better and Alvaro especially had some good feedback today. We also had to face and resolve a few problems that are normal for this stage of the project but which slowed our work down a bit in this last session. Naturally we are hard at work analysing the data in order to make changes."

FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)

"For us it is always like a test. The project is very young and we need time. Today we tried various bike setups to improve grip and the power transfer to the tarmac. I would like to point out the efforts of everyone on the team which is truly impressive. We are all working hard to streamline this development process. Every time we are on the track we gain new useful information so now we'll analyse all the data collected today and tomorrow we'll be back on the track trying to improve."

ALVARO BAUTISTA

"In FP2 we tried a different frame setup to improve the feeling going into turns and to get better traction. The feelings were positive but then a technical problem kept us from taking advantage of the final minutes of the session where we would have liked to have put on the soft tyre. In FP3 a problem with the engine on the second bike kept me from being as fast as I would have liked. The positive side is that the setup we tried in FP2 seems to be a good base for future developments, so tomorrow we'll see if we can try it again more thoroughly and maybe take a few steps forward. We know that in our first year of tests we'll have days where everything goes well and others where we'll have to take on and solve problems, but that's the only way to grow."

MARCO MELANDRI

"Not much changed compared to yesterday. We made various changes but my situation didn't improve significantly. We're working on the details but I still haven't found that substantial change that I'm trying to achieve. I'll continue to put forth my best effort. My goal now is to point our mechanics in the right direction to improve significantly."