The Ángel Nieto team driver continues to achieve good results, and after the races, he is now also starting to achieve good qualifying results.
Alvaro Bautista proved it: he has the level to stay in MotoGP. Unfortunately, he will compete in his last race in two weeks in Valencia, before leaving for a new adventure in Superbike. Until then, he is keen to finish his career well in the premier category, and the least we can say is that for the moment he is accomplishing this to perfection!
Eleven top 10s out of eighteen races this year, the Spanish driver has a fine track record. Replacing Jorge Lorenzo on the official Ducati last weekend, he also took a splendid fourth place.
His weak point until now remained qualifying, but over the past few Grands Prix things have greatly improved, and he has just continued this good dynamic. After finishing eleventh in the combined free practice times, he then qualified in ninth position, his third best performance of the year.
Bautista will therefore start from the third row this Sunday and can hope to achieve great things again: “Tomorrow it will be important to see under what weather conditions we will ride. If it's in the dry, I have good feelings and a good pace, and by getting a good start from the third row, I will be able to try to fight in the leading group from the start. Physically, it will be a test but I feel good on the bike. My goal is to finish in the top ten. Changing the race time to avoid rain is a good decision. Today we were lucky because it finally stopped raining, but there were times when it was impossible to ride. »
New starting grid (following Marquez's penalty) :
1/ Zarco – Rossi – Iannone
2/ Dovizioso – Miller – Petrucci
3/ Marquez – Rins – Baptist
4/ Pedrosa – Viñales – A. Espargaró
5/Redding – Pirro – Siméon
6/ P. Espargaró – Smith – Lüthi
7/ Morbidelli – Bradl – Abraham
8/ Nakagami – Syahrin
