The Openbank Aspar Team begins this season at Jerez-Ángel Nieto circuit, where the pre-season tests were held last March. Medina came to Jerez with the experience of the Moto2 European Championship on the same track, so he faced the Spanish Grand Prix with more action under his belt than most of his rivals. For example, his teammate, María Herrera, has stayed without riding a motorcycle on a track since mid-March. The Toledo rider missed the feeling of speed, but she has taken advantage of these months of pause to arrive prepared for the challenges.
In the Spanish Grand Prix Alejandro Medina was fighting for top five positions and María Herrera managed to score a point in a weekend in which she focused on adapting to this season’s modifications on the category. Alejandro Medina completed his first race in the electric bikes category in good shape but his teammate María Herrera found difficulties in adapting to the new changes in the category, such as the new tyres, which force her to adapt his riding style before being able to aim for the best and battle for podium positions.
In the second weekend, for the AndaluciaGP, the Openbank Aspar Team made an unsuccessful comeback in Jerez, with Alejandro Medina leading the race on the first lap. The young Andalusian rider was running his second race in the electric category of the World Cup and started from sixth on the grid. His jump to the front position has been meteoric: fourth in the first corner, third in the second, second in the Nieto corner and first as he started the second lap. However, Medina was unable to convert this brilliant comeback into a podium position due to a crash, when there were just three laps to go. The Openbank Aspar Team rider has crashed in the first corner and has been unable to return to the track. His teammate María Herrera continues to adapt to the new changes in the bike and has finished the race in eleventh position, beating Kornfeil by just thousandths, and adding five more points to her tally.
María Herrera
“In the SpanishGP, at the start, I was able to recover several positions, but during the AndaluciaGP I couldn’t repeat it and on top of that I was behind another slower rider during some corners. When I was able to overtake him, I tried to push, but I'm still not comfortable on the bike, I notice a lot of movement. We need laps, we need to know a little more about the bike, because some things have made my riding style not to work so well, so we have to analyse how we can adapt the bike to my style and my style to the bike. Putting things in the right place, we can fight for the podium like last year we did in some race. In the meantime, we have to work and find the best path. Now it's time to think about Misano, we have a few weeks to continue training, because I arrived at these races without having trained on big circuits. I want to thank the team because they have supported me at all times."
Alejandro Medina
“In the first weekend we finished the first race with a seventh position and, most importantly, with a lot of data and learning things that came in handy for this second weekend. I learned a lot about the bike and how it behaves in the race.
It was a pity to end the second race with a crash, because we were fighting with the group in front and I was feeling pretty good. I had confidence and I have pushed hard from the beginning. We have taken a step forward that will come in handy for the following races. We have good feelings on the bike and we will try to continue like this."
Here you can find the standings of the MotoE World Cup
To be updated on MotoE World Cup, subscribe to Epaddock's Whatsapp broadcast and receive all our news on your mobile phone in real time: find out how here.
