Difficult Race 2 at Magny Cours sees Eugene finish in eighteenth
Milwaukee Aprilia struggled in Race 2 at Magny-Cours on Sunday, with Eugene Laverty crashing on Lap 2 and Lorenzo Savadori retiring on the last lap.
Eugene fell at Turn 16 on the second lap while locked into a fight with Sykes for P4. Exiting the corner Eugene lost the rear but was able to keep his RSV4-RF running. He continued and had a lonely race to his finishing position of P18.
There are positives for the team to take from Round 11 at Magny-Cours, including Eugene’s strong second-half surge in Race 1 and Lorenzo’s much-improved Race 2 pace, which demonstrate the big progress made with the new generation of Aprilia RSV4-RF.
The team next head to Jerez for the penultimate round of the 2017 season, as development work begins to look towards 2018.
Eugene Laverty #50 – Aprilia RSV4-RF
Grid: P3 / Race 2: P18
“The rain was coming down the whole race today but we were still pushing. It was just on the limit of not enough rain to make a difference to the conditions, but my crash on Lap 2 was a surprise. When Sykes passed me at Turn 16 I opened the throttle a little more to cover, but I lost the rear and I didn’t see it coming.
I got the bike started again and continued, but it was very frustrating to go out so early after a positive race in the wet yesterday. It’s hard to say how far I could have got after a lap and a half. I was maybe a bit too tentative in some of the cold left-hand corners because of the weather, but my Sector 1 time on the first lap was second quickest so it showed we had pace we’ll never know for sure.
We’ve made big strides overall this weekend, and the progress in Race 1 was the first time we managed that. There are positives to take from that and with four races left we will work to end the season in good shape.”