Alvaro Bautista takes points in his 100th MotoGP race

Alvaro Bautista’s points finish (thirteenth) on his Aprilia RS-GP closes out a positive weekend for Aprilia Racing Team Gresini. Bautista, who started from the twenty-first spot on the grid, had an excellent start which immediately gained several positions for him.

However, after getting bottled up in the battle at the first turn, he had to start his comeback from scratch. Without losing heart he set his pace, lapping at very good times which brought him up to battle with the group, recovering positions and finishing his one hundredth MotoGP race in thirteenth place.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“I had a great start, gaining a lot of ground in the first few metres but then I was shut out on the first turn and I had to halt my progress. It took me a while to get past Laverty, who was braking very well, and once I had overtaken him I lost some more positions while I was behind Bradl, so I had to start all over again. I managed to overtake Laverty again and Bradl as well and at that point I would have liked to have gone after Vinales but it was too late, so I just held my pace, which was not bad at all, and I’m pleased to have finished in the points again. This was a very positive weekend. We learned a lot, thanks to the team’s hard work. Now we need to keep it up in the coming races.”