The Spanish driver from Team Aspar had a great race this Sunday in Aragon, managing to finish in eighth position, first among the independent drivers and less than eight seconds behind the winner Marc Marquez.
Bautista started the weekend modestly with the eleventh time on the first day, 1.2 behind the leader Dani Pedrosa. Fortunately for him, the sun reappeared on Saturday morning, and he brilliantly finished fourth in the combined free practice rankings, behind Marc Marquez, Maverick Vinales and Dani Pedrosa, just 0.5 behind the best time.
He was therefore easily qualified for Q2, where he was again 0.5 behind the fastest performance, which this time gave him ninth place, although only 0.05 behind.Andrea Dovizioso and 0.02 from Aleix Espargaro.
In the race, he started averagely and found himself eleventh at the end of the first lap. He then overtook Andrea Iannone, then Mika Kallio, and took advantage of Cal Crutchlow's fall to take eighth place on the eleventh lap (around halfway through the race).
On the nineteenth lap, he moved to seventh position by overtaking Aleix Espargaro, but the Aprilia official overtook him shortly after and Alvaro finished eighth. It wasn't his best performance of the year, after he finished fourth in Argentina, fifth in Italy and sixth in Germany. But the gap of 7.9 compared to the winner Marc Marquez should be highlighted as a sign of a good performance.
To Alvaro Bautista, “It was a good race, less than eight seconds behind the winner. In other events, with this difference, I could have been fifth, but at least it means there is a lot of equality. I am satisfied because I gave hundred percent and tried to get the best out of our package.
“We took a gamble on the soft rear, because we didn't know what would happen after the seventh lap, which was the maximum we had achieved in testing.
“In the race, I was in the second group, the main group was very strong, but we recovered ground. In acceleration, I lost a little, it was something we wanted to improve during the warm up, but we did not succeed, and it was under braking that I had to recover. We had a good pace, so I hope to continue this way next time. »
Provisional ranking of the World Championship (Top 20):
1 Marc MARQUEZ-Honda 224 points
2 Andrea DOVIZIOSO-Ducati 208
3 Maverick VIÑALES-Yamaha 196
4 Dani PEDROSA-Honda 170
5 Valentino ROSSI-Yamaha 168
6 Johann ZARCO-Yamaha 117
7 Jorge LORENZO-Ducati 106
8 Danilo PETRUCCI-Ducati 95
9 Cal CRUTCHLOW-Honda 92
10 Jonas FOLGER-Yamaha 84
11 Alvaro BAUTISTA-Ducati 70
12 Jack MILLER-Honda 56
13 Scott REDDING-Ducati 56
14 Aleix ESPARGARO-Aprilia 53
15 Loris BAZ-Ducati 39
16 Andrea IANNONE-Suzuki 37
17 Pol ESPARGARO-KTM 37
18 Karel ABRAHAM-Ducati 28
19 Tito RABAT-Honda 28
20 Alex RINS-Suzuki 27
Photos © Pull&Bear Aspar Team
