Milwaukee Aprilia faced another difficult race in Round 2 at Chang with a 15th for Eugene Laverty and a DNF for his teammate Lorenzo Savadori.
Starting 10th and 12th respectively after their results in Race 1, Eugene and Lorenzo again made solid getaways to stay with the pack and make up places.
Eugene ran consistently in 6th before a red flag for a crash by teammate Lorenzo forced a restart. He then ran strongly in 5th place, but an unfortunate error caused him to drop his bike and rejoin in 16th place. He recovered to finish the race 15th with 1 point.
The team now heads for Round 3 in Spain for the European stint of the 2017 season. They have a raft of exciting upgrades to test at the Motorland Aragon circuit in 3 weeks’ time, which they will use to achieve another step in performance and fight for better results.
Round 3 of the 2017 season takes place at Motorland Aragon in Spain from 31st March – 2nd April.
Eugene Laverty #50
Grid – 7th / Race – 15th “The first half of the race was difficult as I started so far back, so I was extra aggressive to make up places. I was braking harder than usual in some places and worked the front hard, and in a way the red flag gave me time to regroup. After the restart the conditions were slippery so the front tyre was moving a lot. I had a lot of warnings and I tried to settle into my position, but I lost the front so many times and finally after 8 laps I crashed.It’s not nice to ride like this where you can’t push 100% without crashing, but we know where we have to improve. We’ve had so little time between Phillip Island and Chang to develop, but we’ve got some upgrades and new ideas coming for Aragon and I’m confident that we can make a big step forward.”
Source: Milwaukee Aprilia