Another home round beckons with Álvaro Bautista eager to put Misano setback behind him
After a home race for the team at Misano last time out, this weekend it is the turn of Alvaro Bautista as the MotoGP World Championship heads to Spain for the third time this season.
It may be a long way from his home town of Talavera de la Reina, but Alvaro will have plenty of local support at Motorland Aragon, where he is determined to make up for a disappointing result in Italy, when a positive run of form was ended by a bizarre setback that was out of his hands.
Alvaro Bautista “I am still feeling frustrated about the race at Misano, because I didn’t have the opportunity to compete as I would’ve liked. It would’ve been nice to give the team and sponsors a good result to celebrate, but I felt powerless to ride faster and we still don’t know what really happened, because I couldn’t ride comfortably. We didn’t make any changes to the setting compared to practice, but the feeling wasn’t the same and I was unable to fight for a better result. We kept the same setting for the test on Monday and I was able to ride almost a second faster, which shows that on Sunday something strange happened. Anyway, at Aragon we will use the new material from Showa and Nissin that we tested on Monday at Misano and which gave us some positive feedback. Last year we had a lot of problems at this circuit, but this year we arrive with a more competitive bike, so I am sure that we can be fast like we have been in the last races. Obviously we need to work hard from the first session on Friday. The track is unusual with some fast sections and some slow sections, it has a long straight and some long and demanding direction changes. It isn’t easy to find the right compromise with the engine and the setting, but one good thing about Aragon is that you can make overtakes at various points on the circuit.”
Fausto Gresini “We were looking forward as a team to Misano and we were hoping for a good result there, but unfortunately a silly setback has cost us and Alvaro. It’s a shame, but the mood in the team is still good and we are confident we can make amends at Aragon. Alvaro has not lost any confidence in himself and he proved that in the test on Monday, when he was able to lap almost a second faster than he had managed in the race. The test was also useful to try some suspension and brake solutions that he was impressed with and should be of benefit to us at Aragon. We have been in good form since Laguna Seca and we want to get back to that with some more strong results between now and the end of the season.”
Source: Gresini Racing
