Bautista ready to tackle the track where he’s been the most successful in the past

Álvaro Bautista heads to Portugal on the back of three strong racing performances during the recent Pacific Grands Prix. He is in a determined mood ahead of what he believes to be another ‘home’ Grand Prix, at a racetrack where he has previous knowledge of riding a MotoGP machine – following last year’s November ‘Rookie’ test – and the added confidence from winning at the Estoril circuit on three of his previous four visits.

The 4,182m Automotodrom Fernanda Pires da Silva circuit at Alcabideche near Estoril has ultra-fast corners and an almost kilometre-long straight, plus one of the slowest sections of the season making for a very contrasting layout. Situated on a rocky plateau high above the towns of Estoril and Cascais, just to the west of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, the circuit is only a few kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean and high-winds whipped up off the sea are a problem that riders have to contend with.

Rizla Suzuki takes to the track on Friday morning for the first practice session, as MotoGP again returns to four practice sessions in a weekend – instead of the usual three. The second and third sessions will take place on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning respectively, with qualifying taking place on Saturday afternoon. Sunday’s 26-lap race is the penultimate Grand Prix of the 2010 season with the riders taking to the grid at the earlier time of 13.00hrs local time (13.00hrs GMT).

Álvaro Bautista: “I really like it at Estoril, I have had lots of success there and it is a track I like to race at – it is as close to my home town as some of the Spanish tracks so it feels like a ‘home’ GP to me, especially because I know many of my family, friends and fans will be there to support me. I went there with the GSV-R last year so I will have a bit of an idea of the reference points on a MotoGP bike, similar to what I had at Sepang, so hopefully we can be as competitive right from the start in Portugal as we were there. We had a couple of problems at Phillip Island and they have all now been sorted and won’t happen again, so we will be able to go right from the start and try to get back into that top-six, where I know we are capable of being.”

Source: Rizla Suzuki MotoGP