Top ten finish for Alvaro Bautista in tricky German GP
At the end of a race complicated by weather conditions, but managed skilfully, and perfectly assisted by his team, Alvaro Bautista rode his number 19 Aprilia RS-GP once again to a top ten finish, leaving the German GP with tenth place.
The race started in very wet track conditions, although it had just stopped raining. After a good start and an authoritative comeback on the group, Bautista settled solidly into the positions battling for the top ten after starting from the eighteenth spot on the grid.
The gradually drying track forced all the riders to change bikes. Alvaro jumped onto the RS-GP with intermediate tyres nine laps from the end, after moving up as far as seventh place. Back on the track, he joined the group battling for sixth place that also included Pedrosa, Miller, Rossi and Barbera.
A drop in performance by the intermediate tyres three laps from the end convinced him to “settle” for the position he was currently occupying.
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“A complicated race. We started in the wet, but it wasn’t raining, so the track was gradually drying out. I had a good start and, in those conditions, I managed to overtake several riders until moving up to eighth place. At a certain point, when the track was improving, the rain tyre performance began to drop, especially the front. I also tried to change my lines a bit, but I had no choice but to stop to change bikes. With the intermediates, the feeling was not perfect. We had done very little testing with them and both in terms of chassis and electronics I did not have an optimum setup for this type of tyre. In the race, though, on such treacherous asphalt, it is definitely not the best time to try to find the limit. The tenth place finish is in line with our goals. These are important points but more importantly, today we battled with very high-level rivals. There are still a few regrets, because if we had stayed in wet conditions we would have been able to do better, but the end result is decidedly positive”.
Source: Aprilia
