Three days of testing at Jerez, lots of work for the riders and the team and excellent results. Bautista and Melandri took the new V4 with pneumatic valves onto the track. Three full days of work for the riders and the team marked the second time on the track for the Aprilia MotoGP project in partnership with Gresini Racing. After the Valencia tests two weeks ago Alvaro Bautista and Marco Melandri got back in the saddle of their Aprilia MotoGP bikes to prepare for the 2015 season. Once again the weather unfortunately conditioned the progress of the testing schedule, especially on the last day (Thursday), with continuous showers and a constantly wet track.
Despite the stops and goes dictated by weather conditions, the Aprilia bike managed to confirm the fact that it “hatched well”, a fundamental quality for the development schedule to proceed consistently.
At Jerez the Aprilia riders were able to gain familiarity with the new V4 powerplant for the first time, an engine characterised by pneumatic valves. The engine, which guarantees higher levels of power than the first version with conventional valves, made its début on Wednesday since the work on Tuesday centred around fine tuning the electronics and set up with the old version.
131 laps were logged in Alvaro Bautista’s ‘three days’, with his best time stopping the clock at 1’40.6, whereas Melandri lapped 123 times, putting in a 1’41.5 for his best time.
There is still a long road of growth ahead, but the indications that came out during the tests on the Andalusian track left the entire Aprilia team satisfied and feeling positive as they head into the winter break. Testing will resume on 4 February with the official session in Malaysia on the Sepang track.
