Positive start for Bautista at Estoril but lacking rear grip

Alvaro Bautista today made a positive start to the Grand Prix of Portugal, an event he considers his fifth ‘home’ race with the Estoril circuit located just 500 kilometres from his home town of Talavera de la Reina. The Spaniard made the most of limited lap time on a damp track this morning to get comfortable with his machine before closing the gap to the top riders in the afternoon and finishing sixth fastest overall.

Alvaro Bautista ( 6th 1’ 38” 959) “The track this morning was like Jerez and I was worried that we might be in for the same kind of weekend, but thankfully this afternoon we managed to get some dry track time in, even though there were some wet patches out there, like in the final turn. We tried two different settings to give ourselves a good base to work from tomorrow and it was positive. Now we have some reference points to start work from in terms of trying to improve my control over the rear of the bike in corner entry. We have some things to try with the suspension and I think we’ll be able to improve rear grip tomorrow.”

Fausto Gresini “Alvaro’s pace was up there with the best today. His confidence with the bike is good although he could do with a little more in corner entry, especially on the rear. We will check the data and I am sure we will be ready for tomorrow but the important thing right now is that he feels more and more comfortable with the Honda RC213V every time he goes out on track.”

Source: Gresini Racing