Solid start at Motegi for Alvaro Bautista

On the first day of practice at Motegi in anticipation of the MotoGP race Sunday, both of the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini riders seem to have gotten off on the right foot.

Alvaro Bautista, after working on race pace and consistent performance in the morning, improved his time in the second session, finishing in 22nd place (1’46,974), slowed down in his attempts to improve by traffic on the track at the end of FP2.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“In the morning we worked essentially on finding a good setup to start off the weekend. Then in the afternoon we tested some different settings but I didn’t like them so we went back to the solutions from the first session. In FP2 I improved on my time from the morning but I could have done a lot better. At the decisive moment, in the finale, I wasn’t able to get a clean lap in because of traffic on the track. There were slower riders ahead of me who slowed me down a lot. But it was a good start and now we need to work first and foremost to improve in the braking sections which are decisive here and also where I am still struggling to stop the bike the way I’d like to.”

Source: Aprilia