PODIUM AGAIN
15 May 2006 - Aprilia

Mattia Pasini and Alvaro Bautista rode their Aprilias all the way to the podium in the fourth race of the year in Shanghai

The riders of the Master Aspar team completed two different races. Pasini really attacked, right from the beginning, and Bautista showed a lot of progress. Pasini was immediately among the forerunners, along with Kallio and Simon on KTM, Talmacsi on Honda, and soon after Pesek and Derbi also joined the group.

Pasini tried as hard as he could to get the victory, but the Chinese track, characterized by long straight-aways and quick stops, was not really favorable for the RS 125. However, Mattia gave it his all in the last lap, but his racing strategy was disrupted by Pesek, who came up on the straightaway right before the finish line. Pasini had planned on letting who was in front of him go by in order to obtain a finale like last year’s; unfortunately, after he watched Pesek go by, he also let Kallio get by and nothing could be done to catch the runaway Finland rider.

Mattia Pasini was satisfied just the same with today’s results, because the twenty points he earned will allow him to start thinking about the world championship again. With 49 points, Pasini is in fourth place in the world ranking.

Satisfaction also for Bautista. Pasini’s teammate started out a little behind and it seemed like he would not be able to participate in the podium party. After the first half of the race, Alvaro got to work on gaining position and in the end was able to catch up to the leaders with only 6 laps left.

With the third place win at Shanghai, Bautista reinforces his first place in the rankings, moving up to 86 points, keeping his 28 point advantage on Kallio.

Only a seventh place finish for Hector Faubel, winner of the Istanbul race. The rider for Master Aspar was not able to insert himself among the leaders and had to really fight with Corsi (Gilera), Lai (Honda) and Koyama (Malaguti), to finish where he did.

Also noteworthy, Lorenzo Zanetti’s fall and the good showing by Raffele De Rosa. The rider from Multimedia Racing was able to withstand the initial battles of the race, using his second row placing to his advantage, took eighth place in the second round trials and after a good beginning in the race, finished in twelfth place.

Thanks to the good showing of the Aprilia riders in the fourth race of the season, Aprilia is the leader in the manufacturer classification with 95 points and a 32 point advantage over its competitors.

www.aprilia.com

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