Alvaro Bautista expecting tough weekend at Qatar MotoGP season opener

The Losail International Circuit will light up this weekend for the opening round of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship: after two months of pre-season testing, both riders of the Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini, Alvaro Bautista and Scott Redding, are excited ahead the Qatar Grand Prix, the only race of the 18 on the MotoGP calendar to take place at night.

This season sees the introduction of new technical regulations, with ‘Open’ machinery racing alongside the ‘Factory’ bikes: the Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini will race both configurations, with the 2014 version of the well known Honda RC213V for Alvaro Bautista and the brand new RCV1000R developed by HRC – the so-called “Production Racer” – for teammate and premier class debutant Scott Redding.

The Qatar race marks the beginning of the third season of Alvaro Bautista as a rider of the Team: the Spaniard is looking stronger than ever after some highly competitive pre-season – topping the time sheets on two out of nine days of testing – and he will try to fight for podium finishes right from the beginning.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“During the three-day test in Qatar we have made ​​several changes to the bike: during the first day of practice I was not feeling very comfortable, but at the end of the test the situation has undoubtedly improved, so we are confident ahead the first Grand Prix. However, we must consider that the Losail International Circuit for us is one of the most difficult tracks of the season ; unfortunately, here we are still not able to be as fast as we would like. Therefore I expect a tough weekend, in which we will need to work hard if we want to improve, but we will give 110% to try to be protagonists”.

FAUSTO GRESINI
“Finally, we are ready to race! During the winter we worked well and we know that we are a strong team with a great potential, because we can count on an experienced rider like Bautista, and also on a young talented rider like Redding. In addition, we enjoy a great support from our main sponsor, GO&FUN : just like us, they are big fans of this sport and they are pushing hard on the accelerator. We are therefore ready to tackle a new season, characterized by new regulations that will surely contribute to add some excitement. From this point of view, we will race with both the available configurations: the Factory Honda RC213V is an extremely competitive bike, with which Bautista can be an absolute protagonist. With regard to the three-day test recently held at Losail, although we have not been as fast as we wanted, we look at this first Grand Prix with confidence, convinced that we can be competitive if we will work well over the race weekend”.

Source: Gresini Racing