After a complicated start to the season, team driver Ángel Nieto has found solutions with his team which have enabled him to achieve good results for several Grands Prix. Even if the start of the weekend was not easy, he ultimately had an excellent race alongside the drivers in front.
Alvaro Bautista has been showing himself more and more at the forefront in recent races. Despite his blank result at Le Mans and his sixteenth place in Argentina, he always finished in the points, and his results are improving: thirteenth in Qatar, fifteenth in Texas and eighth in Jerez.
Building on this positive dynamic, he arrived motivated at Mugello. However, free practice was not easy with a nineteenth place in FP1, a twentieth place in FP2 and a twenty-first place in FP3. After an improvement in FP4 with a fourteenth place, he then qualified in sixteenth position, his best qualification since the start of the season.
Bautista being stronger on Sunday than the rest of the weekend, he, as often, got a good start and knew how to manage his race to finally make a good comeback alongside Maverick Viñales to the group fighting for the podium formed by Danilo Petrucci, Valentino Rossi, Andrea Iannone and Álex Rins.
Unfortunately, despite a few attempts, he was unable to fight with them, and remained in last place in the group to finish in ninth place: “I'm happy because the gap with the first two was the smallest this season. We had a fairly competitive race. I tried to give 100 percent all the time, and when I saw Maverick Viñales right in front of me in the first laps, I thought about following him because I suspected that in the second part of the race it would be very consistent and fast. We went back up and little by little caught up with the group who were fighting for the podium. I tried to pass Viñales several times, but almost fell during one of them. »
However, the Spanish driver knows that his weak point remains qualifying, and that he absolutely must improve on this point if he wants to stop losing time in the first laps, and achieve better results: “Now we have to focus on improving our Saturdays, especially in qualifying, because everything is easier when you start from the front. »
Italian Grand Prix Mugello MotoGP J.3: Ranking
1 99 Jorge LORENZO Ducati 41'43.230
2 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati +6.370
3 46 Valentino ROSSI Yamaha +6.629
4 29 Andrea IANNONE Suzuki +7.885
5 42 Alex RINS Suzuki +7.907
6 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW Honda +9.120
7 9 Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati +10.898
8 25 Maverick VIÑALES Yamaha +11.060
9 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA Ducati +11.154
10 5 Johann ZARCO Yamaha +17.644
11 44 Pol ESPARGARO KTM +20.256
12 55 Hafizh SYAHRIN Yamaha +22.435
13 53 Tito RABAT Ducati +22.464
14 38 Bradley SMITH KTM +22.495
15 21 Franco MORBIDELLI Honda +26.644
16 93 Marc MARQUEZ Honda +39.311
17 10 Xavier SIMEON Ducati +1'01.211
18 30 Takaaki NAKAGAMI Honda 5 Laps
Unclassified
41 Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia 4 Laps
43 Jack MILLER Ducati 22 Laps
12 Thomas LUTHI Honda 22 Laps
Did not finish the first round
26 Dani PEDROSA Honda 0 Lap
17 Karel ABRAHAM Ducati 0 Lap
45 Scott REDDING Aprilia 0 Lap
