Rizla Suzuki’s Alvaro Bautista takes lead in second free practice session at Valencia – MotoGP news
Rizla Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista took the charge for the second practice session on the first day of Valencia GP weekend.
The season finale of the 2011 MotoGP championship is due to take place at the Ricardo Tormo circuit at Valencia Spain.
Bautista said, “Today has been a good day for us because we have had a full wet session to get some practice in those conditions. In this morning’s session I had a good feeling at the start, but as the track became drier it wasn’t as good and I couldn’t
ride at the limit.”
The morning session was led by the new world champion Casey Stoner of Repsol Honda whereas the Spaniard was 11th. The FP1 was heavily affected by a brief rainfall that lowered the grip.
While in the second practice session, the Spanish sole Suzuki rider took the lead and delivered his best lap time of 1 minute and 47.957 seconds. Still he was about couple of seconds slower than Stoner’s best lap time set in the morning.
Even Bautista was a second slower than his morning’s best lap time that was 1 minute and 46.992 seconds. The Spanish rider was among others in an effort to take a progressive step ahead.
Due to the greasy tarmac conditions, the bike had a loose rear end and the wheel spin was massive.
The Spaniard added, “The bike moved a lot and was spinning-up all over the track, so it was very difficult. In the second session, after the heavy rain, the track was much wetter and the conditions were a lot worse than this morning for all the riders, so
it was essential that you rode smoothly and carefully.”
Later in the day, the team made some changes in the setting of GSV-R which helped Bautista to improve his rhythm.
The improving margin is very less in the wet conditions compared to the dry track conditions. The team is looking forward to take run a dry third practice session and qualifying round.
Running in a dry session will leave a lot room for improvement as the first day was totally wet and the second session was even worse.
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