BatiFan Blog | The Alvaro Bautista Fan Blog | Rizla Suzuki MotoGP

The Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup is superb – well worth catching up on if you don’t know too much about it. It’s effectively a feeder series for the higher MotoGP classes, and always provides some cracking action featuring excellent Brit talent like Danny Kent (Check out this iTunes link for video podcasts of last season’s races) and although the 2010 season itself will be underway before too long, the organisers are already looking ahead towards the selection process for the 2011 championship, and applications are now open for the 2010 Selection Process.

As the level of the Rookies Cup has got higher and higher the organisers have had to make the selection process ever more stringent. The competition to get into the Rookies Cup has become as intense as the Cup itself so they are now giving it a well deserved title: “Road to Rookies Cup”.
The Road starts with the online application through the website at www.redbullrookiescup.com

Applicants will fill in a good deal of information about themselves and their motorcycle experience. Once accepted onto the Road they will send in their competition results through the 2010 season to further inform the Selection Panel about their progress during the year. The top performers on the Road to Rookies Cup will be featured in a special section on the Rookies Cup website so that everyone can see who is likely to be invited to the Selection Event, planned for early October.

The very best of the riders who take the Road to Rookies Cup will be invited to that crucially important Selection Event and this year the Selection Panel will have more information than ever before about the prospective Rookies to make sure that the future World Champions get a chance to prove themselves in the 2011 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup.

So if you have your heart set on Grand Prix stardom – or of course if you know someone who could be ideal material for this championship, then get on the case now…

A very special announcement for you, as we at BatiFans.com introduce this year’s RACECARD Competition, featuring our greatest prize yet: a pair of Alvaro’s racing gloves, used by Bati this coming season and signed by him too – courtesy of our very special sponsors REV’IT! Sport International, suppliers of Alvaro’s leathers in 2010.
REV’iT! will also be providing some runners-up prizes of t-shirts, again exclusively signed by Alvaro himself.

Those of you who have been forum members at BatiFans.com for a while and who may have played RACECARD 2009 will need no introduction to the game; it’s simple – you just predict Alvaro’s qualifying and race positions race by race across the season and you score points for correct predictions.

We will be posting up the topic for the first round in the week ahead of the first race, and you can find out more about RACECARD 2010 – and keep up to date with an ongoing league table at this address:
www.batifans.com/racecard
The competition is open to forum members only, so if you’re not already a member, then join now! This prize is too good to miss!

To find out more about REV’IT! and their ranges of bike and fashion gear go to: www.revit.eu

Decent looking progress today, with Alvaro finishing the day in 10th (having been up as high as 8th) – though only covering 25 laps.
Here’s the order at close of play…

1. Rossi (Yamaha) 2.00.271
2. Stoner (Ducati) 2.00.512
3. Hayden (Ducati) 2.00.703
4. Edwards (Yamaha) 2.00.988
5. Spies (Yamaha) 2.01.014
6. Capirossi (Suzuki) 2.01.320
7. Dovizioso (Honda) 2.01.439
8. Pedrosa (Honda) 2.01.478
9. Aoyama (Honda) 2.01.692
10. Bautista (Suzuki) 2.01.732
11. De Puniet (Honda) 2.01.980
12. Melandri (Honda) 2.02.078
13. Barberà (Ducati) 2.02.4080
14. Kallio (Ducati) 2.02.082
15. Yamaha T 2.02.287
16. Espargarò (Ducati) 2.02.367
17. Simoncelli (Honda) 2.03.689
18. Yamaha O 2.04.500

Alvaro’s learning experience continues with the second Sepang test where today he ran well and, despite a small spill, he finished the session with the 9th fastest time – a very creditable figure in itself and the fastest of the genuine series rookies and reassuringly close indeed to the times of the likes of Dani Pedrosa.
Top work and we’ll see how it continues tomorrow…

Here’s the timings:

1. Rossi (Yamaha) 2.01.068
2. Stoner (Ducati) 2.01.219
3. Dovizioso (Honda) 2.01.631
4. Capirossi (Suzuki) 2.01.687
5. Spies (Yamaha) 2.01.843
6. Edwards (Yamaha) 2.01.897
7. Pedrosa (Honda) 2.02.036
8. Kallio (Ducati) 2.02.038
9. Bautista (Suzuki) 2.02.078
10. Melandri (Honda) 2.02.086
11. Hayden (Ducati) 2.02.221
12. Aoyama (Honda) 2.02.419
13. Espargarò (Ducati) 2.02.447
14. Barbera (Ducati) 2.02.485
15. De Puniet (Honda) 2.02.535
16. Simoncelli (Honda) 2.03.254

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP riders Loris Capirossi and Alvaro Bautista visited the Suzuki Factory at Hamamatsu in Japan earlier this week, en-route to the second test of the year at Sepang in Malaysia.

Alvaro and Loris were joined on the trip to Suzukis headquarters by Team Manager Paul Denning and were given a tour of the base for Suzukis global activities.

The trio were shown around the Suzuki Plaza museum by Suzukis Directors Mr.Toshihiro Suzuki and Mr. Masanori Atsumi and Managing Officer Mr. Sadayuki Inobe. The group were able to inspect many of Suzukis historical products including original Suzuki looming machines, Suzuki’s first ever powered two-wheeler the Power Free motorised bicycle , the Colleda – the first true motorcycle produced by Suzuki – and the RM62 (50cc), which won Suzukis first motorcycle Grand Prix at the Isle of Man TT in 1962.

They also visited Suzukis race department and met with engineers to discuss the detailed progress that is being made in the development of the 2010 Suzuki GSV-R that the pair will be riding during this seasons MotoGP World Championship.

The riders now head to Malaysia for an important second test this week. The pair will be trying the latest updates for their Suzuki GSV-Rs at the 5,548m Sepang International Circuit. Capirossi had a promising test there earlier this month when he finished sixth overall on the timesheets and new team-mate Bautista will be looking to continue with the impressive learning development that he has shown since making the move up to MotoGP from the 250cc class.

Alvaro Bautista:
“I want to say thank you to Suzuki for their invitation and for a great experience today. I am new to MotoGP, and new to Suzuki, but I really feel more like part of the Suzuki family each day. The engineering facility is amazing, it really opened my eyes to what goes on to support us and after visiting the museum I know a lot more about Suzukis history. It is incredible to see such a huge company still feeling like a family business and everyone is so friendly and welcoming. I did my best to tell the engineers my exact feedback from the bike, but first I need to push my own level to the maximum and get to the limit of the bike – then its my right to complain and request better performance, but not yet! I feel the same as Loris – very motivated and very sure that Suzuki will do its maximum to support us.”

REV’IT Sport International – suppliers to Alvaro of leathers and gloves for this 2010 season, have very kindly supplied us with an exclusive desktop wallpaper design to share with you. We told them how much we like sharing download goodies with all the fans up here on the sites and the forum, and as a result they’ve very kindly produced a fantastic, moody widescreen desktop in 3 sizes to suit your monitor; 1920×1200, 1680×1050 and 1440×900.
It’s based on the publicity shot that was used to announce the partnership between Alvaro and REV’IT! but has been altered to shift colours and to change the background texture.

Download the 1920×1200 version

Download the 1680×1050 version

Download the 1440×900 version

Enjoy! And pass on!