Sixth row start in Japan for Alvaro Bautista

Alvaro Bautista performed well with a solid session in today’s Qualifying for the Japanes Grand Prix at Motegi (sixth in Q1 at 1’45,608), taking the sixteenth spot on the starting grid which means the sixth row for him.

Along with teammate Stefan Bradl’s excellent work these are the best qualifiers for Aprilia since the RS-GP began this rookie season and they demonstrate the good progress that has been made throughout the Japanese weekend.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“Lapping in 45 six is really not bad at all, even if I didn’t feel comfortable straight away with the first tyre that slid around on me. The second went much better so I tried to push to the limit but we still need to do some work to improve braking since I am still not able to stop the bike the way I would like to. Now we need to focus on race pace where we need to be more consistent even when the tyre starts to wear. We have the data from today to analyse in order to know which solution to choose. Then, naturally, everyone is waiting to see what the weather will do since the chance of rain seems fairly certain.”