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Take the last rider to triumph in Argentina, take the bike that on the same track the previous year had touched the skies of the premier class for the first time, put them together; they are Marco Bezzecchi and the Aprilia, and as a first result you will have a Friday as protagonists at Termas de Rio Hondo. The Italian pairing, in fact, first finished in fifth place in FP1 and then confirmed their form in pre-qualifying to place fourth, containing the gap to Marc Marquez, at the top, to just over two tenths. Despite his excellent performance today, Bezzecchi is enjoying himself but insists that he needs to improve in attacking the timesheets.
"The goal of getting directly into Q2 has been achieved. On the flying lap, however, I'm always missing a fraction and we will have to sort a few things out. Tomorrow, in fact, we will mainly focus on improving in this area. On the other hand, we worked well with all types of tires, both front and rear, so tomorrow we will try to continue like this and make up more ground to the best."
Yesterday a little bit of all the riders were worried about the track conditions. How did you find things today?
"For the track conditions the day was better than I expected. Yesterday when I did the track-walk I had the feeling that the track was dirty, while riding on it, already by this morning the conditions were clearly better when compared to past years."
After the Thai weekend you were of the opinion that you had to find something to abuse the RS-GP well in the time attack. Did you find that something here? Are you going in the right direction?
"In my opinion I took a step first of all physically, because I was missing a little something and the Aprilia is a bike that is a bit more physical than what I was used to. Plus the guys in the team are working well and also on the bike we found a little something."
Looking at your RS-GP you don't see the same firmly planted bike that Marquez has, there's more movement, it's occasionally ill-tempered, however, you seem to be able to ride on it, to push it anyway, to enjoy it.
"Yes, we're not completely OK, we're not in as good shape as the first bikes, however, we've made a good improvement and I'm having a lot of fun riding it, so why not ride hard over the problems?" said the #72. "In addition, the Aprilia's front end gives me confidence and it is a good bike also in traction, but it is true that we still lack stability."
Do you think the lack of Martin made it easier for you because you were the one who led Aprilia development in the pre-season, or do you think it might have been better to have been able to discuss things with him?
"It's a bit tiring to answer that question because we'll never know how it might have been if he had been there. What we can say is that it was good for me to have the whole team following me, I certainly had more attention from the engineers. In all honesty, though, I have to admit that I was disappointed not to have Jorge, because that would have been a good stimulus right away. In any case on the bike we are working on it and for now we have done a good job, I feel good, so hopefully we will continue to improve when he comes back."
On the tires, have you already made up your mind?
"It won't be easy to decide because both the medium and the soft are good options. To be honest, with the medium I felt better, but even with the soft the feeling was very good. It will be a difficult choice to figure out after qualifying what will be the best tire to do well in all kinds of conditions."
In Argentina do you feel you have more potential than Thailand?
"It is clear that I want to be competitive and I will try to make a step foward from the first race, but without going crazy. If I have a chance to fight with the leading group I will be happy, otherwise I will continue to give my best as I am doing."
