Alvaro Bautista qualifies 18th in Australia

Alvaro Bautista finished the qualifying sessions at Phillip Island, riding his Aprilia RS-GP to the eighth best time in Q1 (in 1’30,147), just a half second behind the leader) which earns him 18th overall place and therefore the sixth row on the starting grid for the Australian GP tomorrow.

In this decisive session that determines the starting order the Spaniard once again proved to be, as he has been throughout the weekend, faster than Bradl, his Aprilia Racing Team Gresini team mate.

Already in the last two free practice sessions, dedicated to finding the best possible race pace, Alvaro had shown progress compared to the Friday sessions.

ALVARO BAUTISTA
“I’d say that these were good qualifiers which we finished just a half a second from the time that would have gotten us into Q2 – not bad. If anything there is still some room for improvement on race pace that I would like to make. Today in FP3 and FP4 we lapped well with worn tyres. Up to twenty laps I’m able to maintain a fairly consistent pace and then there is a bit of drop. I can feel spinning so I struggle a bit. Tomorrow we’ll use the warm up specifically to work on improving pace. Then in the race it will be important to start well and push hard in the first laps to stay with the group ahead of us.”

Source: Aprilia