Alvaro Bautista working on tyres as Motegi weekend gets underway

Today was a day of highs and lows for the Team GO & FUN Honda Gresini at Twin Ring Motegi, where this weekend the Grand Prix of Japan is taking place: Alvaro Bautista and Scott Redding, in fact, closed the combined classification of the first two free practice sessions in 12th and 19th position, respectively, nevertheless working methodically in order to improve for the rest of the weekend.

Bautista, especially, was feeling comfortable straight from the morning session: the Spaniard found a better feeling with the bike compared to the last few races using the softer compound available, then he struggled a little bit in the afternoon when he tried the harder tyre, therefore improving his morning lap time by only 0.4 seconds.

ALVARO BAUTISTA (12th – 1’46″227)
“This morning I was feeling not so bad with the bike although track conditions were not perfect. Then, this afternoon we tried the hard rear tyre, but it was a bit more slippery compared to the softer one; in addition, at the same time I had a problem with the bike. At a certain point I started to feel a lot of vibration on the front end, on the straight and under braking; I don’t know if that was because of the tyre or the bike, we need to check it. For this reason I couldn’t improve my lap times and my final position is not so good, however I’m happy with the feeling: it’s not perfect, but it’s not as bad as in the last few races, so I’m confident for tomorrow. We have to work a little bit more and we need to fix the vibration issue, then we can do well”.

Source: Gresini Racing