Alvaro Bautista qualifies fifteenth at Jerez

Alvaro Bautista rode his RS-GP to fifteenth place (in 1’39.612) and with his best performance qualifying in this early part of the season he secured a spot on the fifth row for tomorrow’s race.

This is a sign of the progress that Aprilia Racing Team Gresini has achieved in the first rounds of the championship, moving the Spanish rider into that group that is the short-term goal at the moment.

Now the challenge remains to confirm the progress shown today in a race tomorrow that promises to be difficult due to the hot conditions and poor grip.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“We worked well today to improve compared to yesterday. It was a positive day, partly because of all the data we were able to acquire. On my flying lap I simply tried to be as precise as possible, riding the bike that I felt most confident on, but we can even improve more on this, especially in the acceleration phase where I’m still lacking a lot of grip. The race will be hard. This track really eats up the tyres and making the right choice will be important. Today I tested the hard front tyre and I think that’s what I’ll go with for the race, whereas on the rear we’ll mount the soft tyre. I think it is consistent enough for race length.”

Source: Gresini