Ãlvaro Bautista produced another stellar performance in the French Grand Prix for Rizla Suzuki, scoring a solid 12th place that could have easily been a top ten finish. After being pushed wide at the start, Bautista found himself in a race long battle with 4 other riders for position.
After constantly swapping positions with Hector Barbera, Loris Capirossi, Karel Abraham and Toni Elias, Bautista had a small coming together with Barbera which cost him time and with laps running out, simply could not make anymore ground up from 12th.
“This is my first race this year because in Estoril I raced alone, but today I was able to fight with other riders!” said Ãlvaro after the race, “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.”
He continued, “I felt like I had no good rear grip in the exit of the corner and the bike was spinning a lot and I struggled to stay with the group going for places in the top-10. I made a mistake when I tried to pass Abraham later on as I touched the gear lever and went into neutral and lost some time, and I also had a bit of an incident with Loris and Hector. I tried to catch the group at the end, but it was very difficult to get past them.”
Ãlvaro continued with his evaluation, “This is another race completed and I felt more competitive than in Estoril. This race was good for getting the racing feeling back and being able to overtake other riders and fight with them. I did many overtakes under braking and enjoyed the race very much, but not the result! I think if my rhythm had been better I could have finished in the top-10. I want to thank all my team, because it has been a difficult weekend with some strange weather conditions, we tried to do the best we could and make a good bike for these conditions.”
