In-depth Solo Moto interview with Alvaro Bautista: “My target is to be first”

Before the final race of the 2010 season at Valencia, the Spanish magazine Solo Moto published an extensive interview with Alvaro Bautista, conducted after the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island. The Spanish Suzuki star talks about his first year in MotoGP, what has changed for him and what he expects for the future. Enjoy.

Quietly, gradually, Alvaro Bautista has found his place in MotoGP. He’s prepared to end his rookie year with his sights set on the future. In 2011 he will be the only Suzuki rider, something that does not lower his ambition to fight with the best in the category.

Four years ago, on his return from Australia, and after making a stop in Japan, Alvaro Bautista came home to Talavera de la Reina as a hero, the 125cc world champion. Now he is one of five Spanish riders in the MotoGP class, in a season that has seen him move to the background as a result of the reign of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.
“It’s another ball game. The time in 125cc and 250cc were good years for me. Especially in 250cc, in every single year I’ve been there I was fighting for race victories and the championship until the end, but this here is different. There’s a much higher level and the differences, even though they are smaller, in some regard they are much bigger. We really aren’t that far off. In 250cc I remember when, for example, you’re 0.7s behind in practice and qualifying, you can still fight for the win in the race. Here, when you’re 0.7s behind, you definitely won’t be fighting for the victory. I take this year as a learning year. Since we started the season, of course excluding the injury, everything went better and better. Sooner or later I will be running with the front guys. Of course I would like that to be now, from the first day on, fighting for podium positions. But we have to look at it philosophically. I know it’s not easy, apart from the fact that I don’t really have the best bike in the class, but little by little we were working our way up all year and we are improving. With patience and hard work it will all come, so I don’t worry about whether we’re playing second or third fiddle right now. You have to keep working and stay focused and when you keep sight on your goals, you will achieve them.”

Solo Moto: It seems like you’ve been working silently. Looking back at the beginning of the season, if anyone had said that Álvaro Bautista would be fighting for the Top 6 or Top 7, I don’t think I’d believed it.
Alvaro Bautista: If you had told me before the first race that I would be fighting to get fifth place, honestly, I don’t know if I would have signed that. My goals are always set for the maximum. For me a fifth place is good, but my target is to be first. The situation this year is difficult, because at the beginning the bike was a bit worse than it is now, but above all the injury was what threw me backwards a little this season, because I lost a lot of time which I should have spent to do more miles on the bike, to understand it better, to develop it, and these are things I’ve been doing in these last races. I would like to know what level we’d be at now if I had not been injured and been able to work normally with the bike. But that’s the way it was and we can’t change that. The important thing is that we got on a good way again, we’ll see if we don’t lose it again and can keep moving forward.

SM: I wanted to ask you about that, seeing your progress, do you think that without that break due to injury, the situation would be very different now? Because for you, like the other rookies, each GP you have to start working from zero.
AB: Exactly, it is very important. In your first year in which you go without reference to every circuit, you almost have to start from scratch in every race. That makes me think that things would have been different without the injury, those GPs like France or Italy where we could have found further conclusion from the work on the track with a look at the next races. But it’s something we will never know, because you can’t go back to the past. Anyway, I’m calm, because every time I’ve been in great physical form and had the opportunity I worked well and gave my best – especially in the last few races we’ve been more consistent. I feel stronger on the bike, that I can manage the situation better, it’s what I look for. I knew that it would be a tough year, perhaps not so much the injury, but I knew what it was going to cost me and that it would not be so easy to get here and just have it all done.

SM: A lot has changed in the way you work; in 125cc you took a bike that was well-known throughout the world and took the title with a very experienced team that had a lot of data of the Aprilia; in 250cc the same thing again. Now you’re with Suzuki, in a box with two riders and together with your teammate Loris Capirossi, who’s not the most conventional rider in the world. Does this mean more difficulties for you?
AB: Dude, surely. In 125cc, with the Aprilia, we had references for all circuits and we knew how it worked well, and there was not much more to discover; in 250cc the same, I got a bike that was competitive and that was already winning, with plenty of references from many years.
The Suzuki wasn’t the best bike when we got here and it still isn’t, but we are evolving. As you say, Capirossi is a very brave pilot, he is very fast, but he has a way of riding a little aggressive which makes it not easy to get a good setting. It is not easy to make it a stable bike that works for everyone. At first I used some of his data, but there came a point when I could not go as he went and had to start finding my own way.

SM: When was that moment?
AB: From Silverstone. It was where I said: “Look, there’s no way I can go well with this bike.” From there we took a completely different line, we started working and things got better. Then from Brno we started to work a little more on the electronics, and every time we’d changed more in comparison to what we had at the start of the year. It’s the same electronics, but you can make many changes; it can give you more power here, less there, or traction control … You can adjust it in many ways. I’ve been changing a lot more than before.

SM: Are you noticing that things are going the ways you are saying?
AB: Well, a little, yes. For example, the antiwheelie control I’ve already gotten a little earlier, in Holland, but then it didn’t work well at all. I noticed that it improved a lot. In the corner exit it’s gotten better, also because I improved part of the traction control and the engine brake. And there are still some things which we have to see if we can try them in the last few races. What I’m saying is: I made my own way. I’m searching my own references and I know that is not the same as if I had gone to a bike that already had good references, a fast and competitive bike with not much left to discover.

SM: Do you see it as an advantage to be the only rider next year, so that the factory’s efforts focus only on you?
AB: If I’m alone in the team, on the one hand, as I have my references, I know that when I go to the circuits next year I will have a base that I can start with. The only advantage would be that that Suzuki works only for me and is one hundred percent focused on me.

SM: How is the communication with the team? You’ve been used to work with Spanish teams.
AB: It has been quite smooth. It is clear that you don’t go in on the first day and already know everyone and know what everyone needs, but it’s been better than I expected because I thought it would be a little more serious, more English. But in fact the atmosphere here, I don’t know if it is because they work in MotoGP and they’re used to other forms of living, it’s quite different to what I expected. And as for the way of working, from the first day I saw that it was super professional. I noticed that everyone is very focused, concentrating on what must be done and that there the most important person in the box is me. They are working for me, they are depending on me and when I make a move everyone is watching to see what I do. So, I don’t have to worry about anything. I just have to stay focused, go out there and open the throttle, because everyone is depending on me and I need to deliver. So in that regard I am very happy.
My technician Tom O’Kane is a very calm guy, he always speaks to me very calmly, very relaxed, and that is also important, because if he was a nervous guy, it would make you a little insecure as well. But if he says things nicely, in a calm and self-confident manner, you’re always much more convinced of what you’re going to do or that the work you are doing will work out. I feel very comfortable and embraced by all.

SM: How do you get along with the fact that you’re a representative figure for Suzuki now and even more next year when you’ll be their biggest representative on two wheels?
AB: I never had the opportunity to work for a factory and I’m glad I made this choice, because it is great to say “I need this” and they work hard to give it to you. But I don’t think “Oh my God, I’m the only one for Suzuki”. What I do know is that I will be playing a role when it comes to all the interviews, all the autograph signings… On the other hand, whenever someone says Suzuki and relating to bikes, I’ll be there. You could say that it ups my value, but racing is racing and you have to give your best. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only one or not, because when I’m on the track I’m focused, I give my best and what I have to do is put Suzuki where they should be, which is fighting to win and battle with the best.

SM: Wasn’t there any moment during the year where you said to yourself “I should have chosen another bike”? Because the general feeling is that yours is the worst bike on the grid …
AB: Yes, the same thing happened to me last year, people asking me where I could go with Suzuki… I think Suzuki is a great factory which has the potential to produce a competitive bike. What’s needed is someone who says “You have to do this, this and this.” It is clear that for me at the beginning of the year it was difficult to do so, I had to get used to the bike and find the right feeling and it’s difficult to decide what you need from the preseason tests. Little by little throughout the year I’ve been saying what I think could be better and in the end I was right and it could be noticed. But at no point in time have I thought “I should have stayed with Aspar and Ducati” or “I should have gone to Tech 3 Yamaha.” It’s been clear for me: Our bike is not the best, but why not make it? Why not work and evolve it to be like the others? Suzuki does have the potential to do so.

SM: After having competed against all the other bikes on the track, what do you think is it that the Suzuki is missing?
AB: Where I can see that I lose a lot compared to the others is exiting from corners. It seems like our bike has a little less grip. My bike is sliding a lot when I open the gas. Other bikes I see going more on the line, more to the point. It’s hard to say if it’s because of the electronics, the power delivery or the chassis… But I do see that.

SM: So, what things are you working on?
AB: They’re evolving a bit more in the electronics; and we may have some new bits for the chassis before the end of the year. These are the main changes we will have.

SM: How was the experience in Phillip Island, Suzuki’s worst track? Have you drawn any new conclusions with those cold conditions?
AB: I wanted to see if we had evolved over the weekend at Phillip Island or if we were still in the shit … In the race I was very angry to run out of fuel, because Suzuki had been without a Top 10 result in Australia since I don’t know when. Given the circumstances of the weekend that [Top 10] wouldn’t have been bad and losing by a failure that was not mine made me very angry. Seriously, the weather didn’t help us with all the rain and we could only test very few things of what we wanted to test. I didn’t really get a clear picture. Of course, in the cold conditions the bike is much more difficult to ride, not at all like in the last GPs, especially in the corners it has no grip at all: not on the entry, not in the corner, it just goes… If you go well into the curve you have to go slowly, because otherwise you lose it, but then you lose about a million years. Especially in Phillip Island this is super important, it is a very fast circuit and what is needed is corner speed. Without that, forget it.

SM: Now we’re going to Portugal and Valencia, two good circuits for you and you go there at a good moment.
AB: Yes, Estoril is a circuit that has always brought me good luck, except last year where I ruined my championship because the engine broke. I have always done fairly well and I also tested with Suzuki there last winter, even though it was only my second time with the bike and very cold. But I do have some data and I’m confident that I can have a good race. And then Valencia, at home, that’s always special. You always give more and it being the last race we all want to finish the year well.

SM: It’s thought that there are four riders in MotoGP who are above the rest…
AB: … I don’t think that, I see it.

SM: Thinking of the future, how do you see yourself in the class? I’d imagine your head will not take it just to lie down for years to come and fill up the grid.
AB: Like I’ve said before: My goal is to be first. Fifth is fine, but the goal is this.

SM: Can you reach them [the Top 4] or it is too early to see their level?
AB: When I improve my laptime by 0.7 seconds per lap in a race then I’m with them. That’s what they’ve been ahead of me in the last races, between half a second and seven tenths.

SM: Well, that’s not bad …
AB: Not bad, no [laughs]. The problem I’m having now is the beginning of the races where I lose a little. But if we compare the beginning of the year to now we have improved a lot. What happens is that when you get close, it is always more difficult to improve. But my goal is to be there and fight. Next year? I will have references and, to put it in quotation marks, it’ll be “easier” at every circuit, because I don’t have to start from zero, like I do now. It’s hard to say now what will happen in 2011, but why shouldn’t we be able to be with them? That’s my goal and I will fight to be there.

Interview by Borja Gonzales for Solo Moto.
Translation by the crew of www.alvarobautista.co.uk, www.batifans.com & www.vroom-magazine.com.
Photos courtesy of Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Team.