Tough qualifying day at Mugello for Alvaro Bautista

Today it was definitely not an easy day for Alvaro Bautista at Mugello: after the good feelings of yesterday’s first free practice, the Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini rider struggled to find the right confidence with the front end and this morning during the FP3 he was not able to set a good lap time to go directly to the decisive Qualifying 2 session, that determines the top 12 grid positions.

Subsequently, a crash in the fourth and final free practice session forced Bautista to participate in both the Qualification 1 – where he resulted the fastest with a best time of 1’48”312 – and the Qualification 2 only with one bike, with no margin for further mistakes.

In QP2 Alvaro improved his limit by 0.2 seconds, setting 1’48”132 and eventually closing in 11th position.

ALVARO BAUTISTA (11th – 1’48″132)
“I crashed in FP4 as I lost the front under braking at turn 4; as a result I had only the other bike available to do both Qualifying 1 and Qualifying 2 sessions, so I needed to avoid other mistakes. For sure it’s been definitely not an easy day for us: after yesterday’s crash we had some problems, therefore this morning we made a big change in the bike set-up, but unfortunately it didn’t work. This afternoon we returned to yesterday’s setting, but today my pace was not so good, I need more confidence on the front end, because we are struggling a lot with the front hard tyre and, on the other hand, we lose some stability with the softer one. We will work hard tomorrow morning during the warm up to try and find a solution, because the goal is to use the front hard tyre”.

Source: Gresini Racing