MotoGP - Aprilia Racing, In the first practice sessions Bautista and Melandri are hard at work on new materials and setups for their Aprilia RS-GP bikes

For Aprilia Racing Team Gresini the first two practice sessions of the Dutch GP round were the ideal continuation of the tests begun at Barcelona the Monday after the last race. That was a day of testing which, as we all know, was hindered by poor weather. Completely in line with a season that for Aprilia is one long test session and race trial, some of the solutions tested at Barcelona were therefore brought to Assen to be tested directly in the free practice sessions of this round. At the end of the day Bautista, who shaved more than seven tenths off his time between the first and second free practice, finished with the 20th best time (1'35,489) whereas Melandri stopped at 24th place with a time of 1'37,225.

ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)

"We had a lot of tests to do at Barcelona in the post-race session but unfortunately we were unable to finish that job because of the rain. So we brought some of that material here. Not al of it because during the weekend the time we have to test is obviously different than on a test day. Above all we tested different stiffness setups both for the front and the swingarm and we found a certain amount of improvement in grip, so tomorrow we'll keep working in that direction. We also tried an evolution of the seamless gearbox - a fine tuning of some of the details - which we'll assess now, analysing the components of the gearbox. 

FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)

"Today we concentrated on testing a few new chassis components in the hopes of taking a few steps forward: Alvaro's feedback was comforting and that is a positive sign without a doubt. That means that we already have a direction in which to go for tomorrow: we'll keep working and giving it our all, although we know it won't be easy, as always."

ALVARO BAUTISTA

"In the first free practice session this morning we started to get our bearings and gather the initial data on this track to define a first basic setup. Then in the afternoon we tested the new swingarm that we had tested briefly at Montmelò. The comparative tests showed that the new part makes the bike more stable in the initial part of the acceleration phase. Now we'll analyse all the data more closely to further improve traction coming out of turns for tomorrow. It was without a doubt a positive day because every improvement, even minimal, is still positive."

MARCO MELANDRI

"Friday is always a good day to figure out which direction to go. Today we found something positive and tomorrow we'll try to make some adjustments to the setup. I'm hoping for consistent weather tomorrow."