Weather conditions were perfect in Valencia for the Superpole Session which saw all twenty-one riders finish within one second of each other, Max Biaggi experienced some problems with grip and narrowly missed out on the Superpole 2 session by 0:101 which meant he started both races from 18th position on the grid. Shinya Nakano was unable to participate in the Superpole session and race due to a bad fall in Saturday morning’s qualifying practice, which resulted in a compound fracture to his left shoulder blade.

“I am very surprised” declared Biaggi “both in free practice and qualifying practice everything was going well and we were achieving interesting times. Instead during the first laps of the Superpole, I started to notice some vibrations and a lack of grip at the back of the bike that prevented me from riding the way I wanted to. So I re-entered the box and changed bikes but the situation didn’t improve much. Now a long and difficult job awaits us, we will analyze the data we’ve gathered in order to understand what happened and we’ll try to use tomorrow morning’s warm-up to the best of our ability in order to impose a great recovery.”

On Sunday 65,000 spectators made the track to the Ricardo Tormo race track in anticipation of some great racing. Biaggi had a good start from the eighteenth position, surprisingly he was able to keep the bike up-right after a series of contacts heading into the first corner. The Roman rider pushed forward, trying to recover as many positions as possible on the track, after the first lap he was in fifteenth place and by the fifth lap he had moved up to eleventh. Biaggi then set his sights on Shane Byrnes’s Ducati and by the half way point was able to overtake him and move up to 8th position. Max then tried his best to catch up to Sykes and Kagayama, but the attempt failed and in the end he crossed the finish line in eighth place at 16:316 behind Haga who took victory.

"We analyzed all of the available data after yesterday’s Superpole,” declared Luigi Dall’Igna, Technical Director of Aprilia Racing “and we didn’t encounter any specific problems with the bike. We brought a number of novelties with us to try out here in Valencia. Some of them were used during the race which gave us very positive results. We decided not to use the others because they still need to be developed. We can certainly say that we brought a much more evolved RSV4 here with respect to the round in Qatar.”

There was a violent downpour at the Ricardo Tormo racetrack in Valencia immediately following Race One. Fortunately it didn’t last long and the track was dry and in good racing condition in time for Race Two. Biaggi started off well throwing himself into the race in an attempt to recover as many positions as possible and he was in tenth place by the eighth lap. A battle then began between Biaggi, Sykes, Kiyonari and Hopkins which saw the riders fighting for impossible breakaways along the back straight, Biaggi was able to launch the final attack on lap 20 and crossed the line in 8th.

"It was a very difficult race,” said Biaggi. “I gave it my all, but it’s very difficult to pass on this track and I also took a lot of risks trying to do even better. These two eighth place finishes may seem disappointing, but after the bad results in the Superpole, it really was impossible to do any better. We did pretty well during the single-lap trials, but we weren’t able to set the pace with the racing tires. This can be viewed as a success in that it has taught us to better evaluate the problems that we encounter and find solutions as quickly as possible.”

Shinya Nakano is doing well after undergoing surgery to repair the compound fracture to his left shoulder blade. The operation, which required the application of a metal plate and eight screws, went off without a hitch. It is expected that Shinya will make a speedy recovery and return in time for the 4th round of the championship on 26th April at the historical Assen circuit.