Bautista misses qualifying, but will attempt to race despite bruises

Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi will start tomorrow’s Czech Republic Grand Prix from the front of the fourth row after qualifying in 10th place, whilst team-mate Álvaro Bautista will start from 17th place after a crash in this morning’s practice forced him to miss this afternoon’s qualifying session.

Bautista missed the qualifying this afternoon because the Spaniard was still in the Brno hospital when the session started. He suffered a 140km/h high-side in this morning’s practice session and early indications showed that he might have a severe spinal injury. Bautista was taken straight to the hospital, but further examinations and a CT scan showed no fractures and just some heavy bruising to his back. Bautista will take to the track in tomorrow’s warm-up session and if he shows no ill effects he will be able to start from 17th on the grid, due to him posting a time in the practice session better than the qualification maximum from this afternoon.

Today’s qualifying was held in dry conditions with track temperatures getting up to 38ºC. Dani Pedrosa recorded the fastest time of the day to give him his third pole-position of the season.

Tomorrow’s race is the 10th round of the season and both Rizla Suzuki racers will be looking to line-up on the grid as the lights change to go at 14,00hrs local time (12.00hrs GMT).

Álvaro Bautista:
“Fortunately there is nothing broken, so this is the most important thing and tomorrow I will try and do the race. The crash was because as I entered turn three I lost rear grip and I couldn’t do anything about it. I did a big jump in the air and I could do nothing to save it. Tomorrow morning I hope I feel much better and I will try to race because I need to do as many kilometres as I can.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“The best news from the qualifying session didn’t even come from the race-track, it was the report back from the hospital that Álvaro’s CT scan had shown no broken or damaged vertebrae and apart from severe bruising he’s fine and will attempt to race tomorrow. After the bad luck he’s had with injuries this year it’s nice to have the roll-of-the-dice for once and that he won’t be forced to miss the next few races is a big boost.

Source: Rizla Suzuki MotoGP