Aprilia 'will surprise' in next races

Aleix Espargaro scored his first points of the season with a tenth-place finish in Sunday's Austin MotoGP.

While nothing to get excited about on paper, the fact it occurred at the RS-GP's worst circuit, from a grid position of 19th and with the new engine performing strongly meant Espargaro is confident Aprilia will be 'the surprise in many of the next races'.

"[Tenth is] nothing that makes me super happy, sincerely. But this is a track where we suffered a lot last season, more than double the second [worst] one," Espargaro said.

"Yesterday we completely f**ked up the setting of the bike. Today we came back to our standard bike, this morning I was fifth in the warm-up and two tenths quicker than qualifying.

"In the race starting from P19 is very difficult. Everybody is fast and aggressive in the first part of the race. I tried to be focussed, made no mistakes, a lot of overtakes and the engine was super-good today.

"But I destroyed the rear tyre and when I arrived to the Ducatis it was very difficult to stay in the draft. I lost a lot of acceleration. But anyway tenth is good, some points after not finishing the first two races.

"Now I can't wait to go to Europe and I'm sure that the Aprilia will be better there.

"I think the level of the team, the bike and myself is better than what everybody expects and I'm completely sure that we are going to be the surprise in many of the next races."

Pressed on why they had gone astray with the set-up in qualifying, Espargaro replied:

"We have to analyse everything really carefully. But after the first two sessions my feeling was that there was not enough weight on the front because I was losing the front all the time, not turning.

"So we worked in that direction, but then we realised that it was completely opposite. We were squashing too much the front tyre. Sometimes it's not easy to feel the difference.

"But today in the race I decided to go on the hard option front and I was very competitive on my standard bike. I'm completely sure if we start in a normal place, let's say top 10, top 12, we could fight for a top eight. Which I think is our normal potential.

"But we have to prove this, so I can't wait to go to Europe.

"I feel good with the bike. Even if the bike looks similar to last season, it's completely different. The weight is in completely different places. The bike is completely different in the front.

"So it's more on my riding style and when everything is okay I feel really strong with this bike.

"The engine has really made a good step because it's the first race I'm able to fight with them with the maximum power available [without fuel consumption issues] and the bike is not far from the other bikes.

"I was able to overtake on the straight, to stay with the Honda, Yamaha and also the Ducati. The difference was not super huge, so I'm very, very anxious to keep racing with this bike because I feel strong."

Aprilia remained at COTA for a private test on Monday, where Espargaro's team-mate Scott Redding was hoping for answers after being left 'cheesed off' by braking issues on his way to 17th in the race.

"The beginning of the race wasn’t too bad but I just struggled to stop and it really annoys me when you can't stop because you go out of the line and lose eight-tenths of a second. You recover it and do exactly the same again. Next lap recover, you do it again.

"And you're braking earlier trying to sort it, but if you have a slipstream of two or three guys - I don't have the range to calculate, it's like I'm on the limit and when I get a slipstream it's like 'ciao, see you later'.

"That's what was hard. Argentina was better for that but trying to get the bike set-up in the right way [here] we had to give something up in the braking and I think that hard front tyre played me a little bit.

"It showed it had the potential, but I think actually it had more negative than good.

"I was working at a bit more stability, thought I could use it in the race and abuse the tyre a little bit. But it was stopping me stopping. So I was arriving late to the corner, missing the apex, taking the gas on the angle and making a harder race for myself.

"On one hand, I'm disappointed. On the other it's a learning process for me. I'm a bit more gutted than anything, because after Argentina I thought 'great, we are back in the ball game'. I mean the bike feels not bad, but it wasn’t really working to the potential.

"So I'm a bit cheesed off. I just have to accept it. We have a test here tomorrow and see if we can improve. It's good to have a test now because I've got ideas I want to try that can maybe work at this type of circuit and have it in my pocket for the next races."