The Aragón weekend comes to an end

Friday, August 28th

The first free practice session gets off to a flying start for Jesus Rios, who briefly moves into second position during the opening series of flying laps. Nicola Carraro, meanwhile, immediately begins to show his good physical condition and the first signs of improvement, breaking into the Top 15 in the opening laps.
Rios makes two pit stops during the session, with the Spanish rider immediately working on finding the best possible bike setup to tackle a circuit he already knows. Carraro, on the other hand, focuses on refining his feeling with the bike, making just one pit stop during the session.
Rios therefore opens his weekend with an encouraging 6th place, while Carraro remains further down the standings, although keeping the gap to the front under control.

Lap times improve significantly for both Snipers riders during Friday afternoon's Practice session, with a very similar strategy divided into three separate runs.
Both Carraro and Rios make two pit stops during the session. For both riders, the second of the three runs is kept short, with just one or two laps, in order to make the final setup changes before the last attempts.
Despite setting some good times during the final stages, Nicola Carraro finds his fastest lap already during the first run, improving his time-attack benchmark by almost one and a half seconds. Jesus Rios, meanwhile, lowers his FP1 benchmark by one second and, on the very last lap, claims an impressive 7th position, confirming his direct access to Q2, which he had already virtually secured before the final improvement.

Saturday, August 29th

The strategies of the Snipers riders once again proceed in parallel during Free Practice 2, with both focused on finding new solutions and further improvements ahead of qualifying.
Both Carraro and Rios begin the session with a short settling run, useful for getting accustomed to the cooler track conditions in the morning. After returning to the pits, Carraro completes a long run of 9 consecutive laps with a constant progression, setting his fastest times over the final three laps.
Rios follows the same strategy, completing 7 consecutive laps while maintaining particularly strong pace and remarkable consistency. Positive indications, therefore, also from a race perspective.

Qualifying proves more complicated for Nicola Carraro who, after setting a good lap on his second attempt, is unable to improve his benchmark during the three laps available after the tyre change. The young Italian manages to show some interesting pace, but traffic on track prevents him from making the most of his improvement, forcing him to stop in Q1.

Jesus Rios, on the other hand, puts together a particularly interesting Q2, improving on every time-attack attempt. On the final lap of his second run, he sets his fastest time of the weekend, earning 10th place on the starting grid for Sunday's race, just five tenths off pole position.

Sunday, August 30th

Jesus Rios makes a strong start, managing to recover a couple of positions already on the straight and moving in pursuit of the leading group, which is still within reach of the young Spanish rider.
Nicola Carraro also gains several positions when the lights go out, but his comeback comes to an early end during the opening lap due to a crash, triggered by the chaos and contact in the tightly packed group during the early stages of the race.

During the opening laps, Rios completes further overtakes, consistently finding himself in the fight to close the gap to the leading four riders, who meanwhile begin to build a small advantage over the chasing group.

Jesus' great pace, however, comes to an end on lap seven. The young Snipers rider crashes at the final corner while trying to increase his pace further and continue his charge towards the podium.

Both Nicola Carraro and Jesus Rios return to the pits without any physical consequences, apart from a few bruises and the great disappointment of a race that ended far too early.

Comments

Little to comment on the race for Nicola Carraro:
“Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through the first lap of the race, so I don’t have much to comment on. I’m immediately shifting my focus to Misano, which is the other ‘home’ race after Mugello.”

Disappointed but already focused on the next round, Jesus Rios:
“I’m disappointed because I was feeling good and I knew I could fight for some important positions after a weekend that kept improving. The focus is already on Misano, which is another circuit on the calendar that I already know.”