Alvaro Bautista spends day one at Silverstone testing new parts

On the first day of practice at Silverstone in preparation for the MotoGP race on Sunday, Alvaro Bautista and teammate Stefan Bradl divided up the work testing the new materials on their Aprilia RS-GP machines.

Bautista used the new frame that had already been used at Brno and which is now available on both bikes, whereas Bradl, in his third round of the season with Aprilia, took a new swingarm onto the track.

With this Aprilia Racing Team Gresini moves forward in their MotoGP project with the goal of confirming the good result from the last race in Brno where, for the first time this season, both riders finished the race in the points. An electrical problem at the beginning of FP2 forced Bautista to change bikes, hindering work and leaving him a bit behind in the final times. Alvaro finished the first day of the English weekend with in 21st with 2’04,885.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“Unfortunately changing the bike kept me from working on what we had planned for the afternoon. It’s a shame because I could have done better. The second bike had a different setting and I didn’t feel comfortable on it, especially in the braking sections. The morning session went better. I rode carefully at the beginning but then I found my pace. Now I have two bikes with the frame that was introduced at Brno and that should allow me, even tomorrow, to compare the various settings more quickly.”

Source: Gresini Racing