Alvaro Bautista struggles in Free Practice sessions in Texas
Alvaro Bautista kicked off the Grand Prix of the Americas weekend on Friday with the first two practice sessions at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Alvaro had a tough first outing as he suffered understeer, struggling to get the bike turned; the Spaniard made some set-up adjustments in the afternoon 45-minute session, but he was not able to improve the situation, closing the first day with the 11th fastest time in the combined classification.
ALVARO BAUTISTA (11th – 2’05″453)
“Obviously, being outside the top ten is an unusual situation for us, but unfortunately we struggled a lot today. It should be said that we are not far from the other riders, excluding Marquez who is a step ahead. We are struggling especially in the middle of the corners, where the bike runs wide: with this situation it’s quite difficult to get the bike turned. In the afternoon session we tried different set-ups, but we couldn’t get a good improvement, so now we will analyze all the data ahead of tomorrow, because of course we want to improve. In the morning session the engine of my bike number 1 turned off right out of the pits, on the first corner, so I had to use the second bike, but we solved the problem quickly, in fact in the afternoon I was able to use both bikes without any problems”.
FAUSTO GRESINI
“Unfortunately today Alvaro was not able to get a good lap time, also because we worked a lot with the hard tyre, so we have not taken advantage of our potential. In any case, apart from Marquez, all the other riders are not far away: we can close the gap from them, so we remain calm ahead of tomorrow”.
Source: Gresini Racing