Rizla Suzuki rider Ãlvaro Bautista scored a valuable, and respectable 8th place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which did no harm to the rookies reputation. The young Spaniard was boxed in at the start, causing him to fall to 14th at the end of lap 1. By the halfway stage, and after some impressive overtaking maneuvers, Bautista was on the tail of his old foe, Marco Simoncelli. Unfortunately the track conditions, and the determination to finish the race meant that he finished behind the Italian.
Speaking after the race, Bautista was tired, but happy with the result. “It was a hard and very difficult race because it was so hot that you could feel the heat coming from the bike and from the ground. It made it a very physical race, but that was also a good test for me to see how my body had healed and at the end I still felt strong. I lost a few places at the start, but I was able to overtake other riders very quickly and I got behind Kallio and decided to follow him because he had a good rhythm and I didn't want to use all my energy with a long race ahead.”
“We caught up to Simoncelli and I knew I was faster than Kallio so it was better to pass him and catch Simoncelli on my own. I saw two points on the track where I could then get past Simoncelli, but they were both very risky because they were very bumpy. I tried to get past in turn 10 but it was just too dangerous to go past because it was so bumpy and I wanted to finish the race – as it had been a long time since I'd done that. I finished in the top 10 and we did a good job through the whole weekend.”
Loris Capirossi was incredibly disappointed to have missed out on a top ten finish. The experience Italian was pushed off the track on the final lap by Hector Barbera. Capirossi had caught and passed the Spaniard with 2 to go, but when Barbera attempted to re-pass him, the pair bumped into each other, forcing Capirossi onto the grass.
A dejected Capirossi said after the race, “Sometimes the feeling in our bike is not too bad and sometimes it is difficult to ride, today it was very difficult and I didn't really have any feeling in the front tyre and this has been a problem I've had many times this year – sometimes causing me to crash. It's really difficult to find the limit, but it's not that easy to just find the solution. Today I tried to keep my pace – which was not as fast as I would want it to be – and at the end I tried to attack Barbera. I got past him, but on the last lap he came in a bit too crazy and hit me and put me onto the grass, so I lost 10th position. I am a bit upset about today's result because the bike has been up and down all weekend and today it was not so good. Everybody tried their hardest this weekend and that is very important, we now need to move on and see what happens next time.”
