Disappointing qualifying for Bautista at Silverstone but promising race pace

The qualifying result taken by Team GO & FUN Honda Gresini rider Alvaro Bautista this afternoon may have disappointed the rider, after the positive developments made this morning. He had been suffering from a chattering issue on Friday, but the problem appeared to have been rectified in practice today. He will take off from eighth on Sunday and look to gain places quickly.

Alvaro Bautista (8th 2’02”252) “Today we worked to solve the grip problem that we have been having, and we found a partial solution this morning. In the afternoon we continued in the same way, trying out the hard rear tyre, but we couldn’t find any improvement. In qualifying we went back to the setting from the morning, but the bike didn’t replicate the performance that it had this morning, and that made things difficult again. I can’t say that I am happy, but the race is tomorrow and, if we get a good start and find a good pace, I am still convinced that we can have a strong race.”

Fausto Gresini “The weekend has been positive so far, even if we were unable to get a qualifying position that was in line with our expectations. It could have gone better, but when you look at the race pace Alvaro has enough to do well tomorrow. The top three were riding at a different pace to the rest, but if we can start well tomorrow we can have a decent race. Alvaro will need to be focused, and I believe that he can get up to the frontrunners like at the last race!”

Source: Gresini Racing