The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team arrives in Aragón for one last European round before the overseas races. At the previous race in Misano Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo were involved in a fight for first, but were surprised by changeable conditions. They are both keen on another chance to show their fighting spirit at theGran Premio Movistar de Aragón this weekend, which is special in more ways than one. Not only is it Lorenzo’s third home race of the season, but it’s also the home GP for the team’s title sponsor, Movistar, who took title sponsorship of the Aragon round for a second year in succession.
Rossi’s fifth place at the San Marino GP helped him increase his advantage in the championship standings over closest rival and teammate, Lorenzo, to 23 points. He aims to continue this momentum and extend his lead even further this weekend at the challenging MotorLand Aragón circuit. After winning Silverstone two rounds ago, Aragón is one of just two rounds included in the 2015 season that the nine-time World Champion has never won at, the other one being Circuit of the Americas (COTA). His best score in Aragón so far has been third place in 2013, but he looks forward to bringing change to those statistics this weekend and is excited about another chance to battle with the frontrunners.
Teammate Lorenzo is also looking forward to arriving in Aragón, which will be his penultimate home race this season. He turned the previous two Spanish rounds in Jerez and Catalunya into Lorenzo’s land and is eager to duplicate these turns of events at MotorLand Aragón circuit this weekend. He has set as a goal for himself to close down the 23-point gap to his teammate and hopes to delight the Spanish supporters with some thrilling racing action. Over the last four years his passionate fans have cheered him on to secure numerous successes in Aragón. He scored a brilliant victory last year, two second places in 2013 and 2012 and a third place podium finish in 2011.
The MotorLand Aragón circuit is situated a few hours drive away from Barcelona. Originally the town of Alcañiz hosted street racing between 1963 and 2003, but safety advice led to the construction of MotorLand Aragón. The fast and challenging 5.077 km long track was first added to the MotoGP calendar in 2010 and has one of the most spectacular elevation changes and multiple flowing corners, allowing for some exciting racing to happen that motorsport fans don’t want to miss.
The circuit’s layout was praised by riders after its first Grand Prix and was rewarded with the IRTA Best Grand Prix of the Year award that same year. It was the first time a circuit had received the prize in its debut year.
Valentino Rossi
As I said many times, now every race has its own story. There are five races from here to the end of the season. If that’s many or few, I don’t know, it depends on your point of view, but I do know that it will be important to win races. Now we go to Aragón, a track where we have tested some weeks ago. The results were positive but also Jorge, my teammate, went very fast. Our competitors are usually strong here too, so it will be a very challenging weekend. We have to work well from the first day and hopefully the received data from the tests will help us. The atmosphere in the team is very good, I feel good and we’re ready to get back on the podium!
Jorge Lorenzo
In Misano, like in Silverstone, the final standings were not as we thought they would be. It was very disappointing, especially regarding the pace we showed throughout the entire weekend, but unfortunately twice in a row we encountered some tricky situations for the race. From now on the fight for title will be tight, but I believe in myself and in my team as well, so we need to keep trying until the end and fight every race to catch up on points compared to Vale. He is riding well and got important points in the last few races, but I’m quite confident we can improve in the last five races so we are ready to fight. This weekend we’ll visit Aragón and, even if Alcañiz’s track is not one of my favorites, I have good memories there since last year when we achieved a great victory, also in tricky conditions. I’ll never give up and this weekend will be the very first opportunity of the final rounds to extend the fight for the championship.
