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

“After the crashes on Friday and Saturday I wasn’t fully confident, so second is a good result. This morning I felt much more comfortable in the warmup, as my arm wasn’t so stiff under braking. The race was strange and hard, as at the beginning we went out with wet tyres and after three laps the asphalt was dry. We then carried on riding. The rain came back at certain points, which was less painful for my arm, even though the bike was moving around a lot. I saw that I was the leader of the chasing pack and went to pull away. I was slowly catching Aoyama, but I risked losing twenty points if I made a mistake, so I went with prudence. On the final seven laps I was really hurting from my arm, so after this complicated weekend taking home twenty points was a good achievement. We will see if I can recover quickly and be back on form for Brno.”

CLASSIFIED:

Pos | Rider | Bike | Time
1. Hiroshi Aoyama Honda 45m17.516s
2. Alvaro Bautista Aprilia + 5.723s
3. Mattia Pasini Aprilia + 36.161s
4. Marco Simoncelli Gilera + 36.776s
5. Mike Di Meglio Aprilia + 41.418s
6. Alex Debon Aprilia + 41.938s
7. Raffaele De Rosa Honda + 57.483s
8. Hector Barbera Aprilia + 59.975s
9. Thomas Luthi Aprilia +1m14.852s
10. Hector Faubel Honda +1m16.927s
11. Jules Cluzel Aprilia +1m21.356s
12. Lukas Pesek Aprilia +1m21.665s
13. R.Locatelli Gilera +1m29.576s
14. Karel Abraham Aprilia + 1 Lap
15. Shoya Tomizawa Honda + 1 Lap
16. Alex Baldolini Aprilia + 1 Lap
17. Imre Toth Aprilia + 1 Lap
18. Luke Mossey Aprilia + 1 Lap
19. Valentin Debise Honda + 2 Laps
20. Axel Pons Aprilia + 2 Laps
21. Aitor Rodriguez Aprilia + 2 Laps
22. Bastien Chesaux Honda + 2 Laps
23. Toby Markham Aprilia + 4 Laps

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

Rider | Bike | On lap
R.Wilairot Honda 18
Ralf Waldmann Aprilia 5
Balazs Nemeth Aprilia 0

Alvaro suffered a bit of a setback after a comfrotable start to FP1, when negotiating a chicane. He was thrown from his Aprilia due to a problem with the engine, and there was little that he could do to avoid a crash. He finished the session in third place after returning to the garage, assessing his condition and waiting for the second bike to be set up, although he is suffering from a strong ache in his right elbow.
Here’s what he said…

“I had a problem with the bike at the end of the back straight. The rear locked up and I was spat off the bike. I took a hard hit on my arm, but I was able to continue and ride the second bike. However, at the end of the session the bruising stiffened up, and it was hard to brake and move the bike. We hardly tried anything today, as we already had a good setting from last year. We wanted to work on this year’s setting, but we were about to use it just as I crashed. The track was dirty and that meant that the times weren’t so good, but we’re not far from the top spot and we were able to pick up the pace again after the crash.”

If you’re not at Donington this weekend , then don’t miss the coverage on the BBC…

Saturday 25 July

Qualifying
1250-1600, BBC Red Button/online

…………………………………………………….

Sunday 26 July

125 and 250cc race
1220-1435, BBC Red Button/online

Race
1500-1630, BBC One/online

MotoGP Extra
1630-1700, BBC Red Button/online

…………………………………………………….

An upbeat Alvaro looks forward to a full length GP to make the most of his favourite circuit, making a cute little reference to Simoncelli’s ludicrous move last year which gifted Mika Kallio the win and the championship lead (D’oh!)…
We’re certainly hoping for a top run from our guy, an a cracking race overall…

“Donington is a circuit I love and I had a great race there last year, despite another rider making what you could call an unorthodox pass on me at the end! Anyway, this is another year and I think things have changed for the better. We’re up there and we’re prepared to go head to head with anybody in any race. We’re doing our job well at every circuit and the fiasco at Assen aside our hard work is paying off. Let’s hope that nothing weird happens this weekend, that the weather is on our side, even though it could easily rain on at least one of the days, so that we can have another nice battle like the one for third place on Sunday – except this time over full distance!”

Right – well, BatiFans is off to the British GP at Donington this weekend.
We’ll be keeping you updated with all the news, stats, quotes and info as usual – plus we’ll be having our second annual meet-up of the BatiFans international fan group.
There’ll be an HQ on the infield all weekend and there will also be daily meet-ups for those who just want to drop by and say Hello (or possibly Ola, or something else…)
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible and we’ve got some information up on the forum already as to the wheres and whens of the weekend. Click here to check maps and notes…

In the build-up we’ll continue with team and rider previews etc and we’ll be aiming to be online with you if you’re not at the track, and with you if you are!

Vamos Bati! Suerte