Rizla Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista feels good after racing in Le Mans – MotoGP news
Rizla Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista has expressed his satisfaction as he made his return after recovering from a fractured femur at the Le Mans circuit of Monster Energy Grand Prix de France on Sunday.
Suzuki team’s sole rider gave a fighting performance at the Le Mans circuit and the fairing-to-fairing tussle went on right until the chequered lap.
The Spaniard launched well off the start line. The riders’ bunch entering into the corners made some riders to fall behind. It was the same case with Bautista. As he entered the second bend, he was tightened up by fellow riders and by the end of the first
lap, he was dropped to the last place in the race.
The Spaniard gathered himself to gain the pace and get into the battle with riders ahead. By the fifth lap, he was engaged in a five-man battle which continued until the end of the race. From Estoril to Le Mans, he is more confident and feels it was his
first race after return.
Bautista said, “This is my first race this year because in Estoril I raced alone, but today I was able to fight with other riders! We managed to finish the race and get more kilometres under our belts, but I did not have the same feeling today as we had
yesterday.”
Bautista cleverly picked each rider to make a pass by the mid of the race progressing up to ninth place, but a mistake gave him a drop of two spots. After that, Bautista was back ended by Loris Capirossi of the Pramac Racing team and soon after Hector Barbera
also came in contact with his compatriot. The incident saw Capirossi coming down and joining his teammate Randy De Puniet in the garage.
The incident cost Bautista to lose time form the pack ahead. Even though he steamed up to get back in the fight but he was short of laps and scored a 12th place finish in the race with a gap of 0.463 seconds from the ninth place.
Alvaro explained some reasons for his lacking performance. He said the GSVR was not holding its rear end on the track with low traction. He added that the corners were giving wheel spin for which he had to struggle to keep up with the riders ahead fighting
for positions in the top ten.
The Suzuki team manager Paul Denning spoke about the performance of Alvaro Bautista and said it was a second step towards his recovery. He said that the fact he rode in Estoril and Le Mans was a great job in itself since people involved in MotoGP expected
Batista not to return so soon. He added that the team expected the Spaniard to return at the upcoming Catalunya race but it was nice to see him make an early return to the game.
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