Photo by: Team Gresini
Determined Ride Seals Fourth For Simoncelli
Marco Simoncelli faced a difficult task in today's race at Aragon from the moment his tyre performance began to drop after ten laps, up to which point “Super Sic” had put together what looked like a strong podium challenge. A subsequent mistake also hampered his cause but Marco was able to fight back and repeat his excellent result from Misano two weeks ago. Hiroshi Aoyama produced a stirring performance in hand to hand combat with Valentino Rossi and Cal Crutchlow, which should fill him with confidence ahead of his home round in Japan.
Marco Simoncelli (4th) “I am pleased with this result – we had to grit our teeth and I'm sure that even without the mistake I wouldn't have been challenging for the podium anyway. Lorenzo was faster than me on used tyres so no complaints there. I didn't get a great start but I managed to get into my rhythm quickly and make some passes to get up to third place. From the tenth lap onwards the tyres really dropped off and then again after another five laps, although Spies was in even worse shape than me so I was able to fight back to fourth.”
Hiroshi Aoyama (11th) ”It was a nice race and a fun battle with Rossi and Crutchlow. The final position isn't great but I am happy with the way I rode in difficult conditions, with much less grip than yesterday which made it tough. Valentino, Cal and I passed each other a few times and it was great fun. Now I am hoping to put up a much stronger performance at our home GP.”
Fausto Gresini “It was a nice race if not an easy one because as we expected the degradation in the tyres proved to be a real problem for Marco. Anyway, fourth place was very well deserved and thankfully the mistake he made did not prove to be costly. A podium would have been a huge ask today so we're happy to repeat fourth from Misano and I think we can have a strong finish to the season. Aoyama did a good job too, fighting with Rossi to the end I think we can have a good weekend with him at his home round at Motegi.”
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