Alvaro Bautista leaves Qatar with race simulation complete, but persisting grip issues

The official MotoGP Winter Tests came to an end yesterday at the Losail circuit: both riders of Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini, Alvaro Bautista and Scott Redding, spent the final day of testing trying an important race simulation.

Despite a small crash as he lost the front at Turn 4 halfway through the session, Bautista was able to complete his long run of 22 consecutive laps: unfortunately, Alvaro couldn’t keep the pace he desired, due to the persistence of some grip issues that the team will try to overcome during the race weekend. Alvaro finished the day with the fifth best time, 1’55”232.

ALVARO BAUTISTA (1’55″232 – 50 LAPS)
“In today’s race simulation we have collected some very important data to work on during the first Grand Prix weekend, although we still encountered some problems, like in the first two days of testing here at Losail. We are still struggling because of the lack of grip at the rear, and moreover halfway through the full race distance, the tyre performance starts to drop. Our pace is better compared to last year’s Grand Prix, and this is positive, but in two weeks we absolutely want to improve. Before the long run I crashed as I lost the front, but fortunately it was nothing serious, so that later I managed to complete the simulation”.

FAUSTO GRESINI
“Today we were able to complete all the planned working program, making a race simulation with both riders. Unfortunately, Bautista had a small crash before his long run, so this episode certainly has influenced him a bit. However, with Alvaro we couldn’t keep the pace that we wanted: we need to work hard on the bike looking for more grip if we want to be more competitive”.

Source: Gresini Racing