Alvaro Bautista is cautiously optimistic ahead of the Indianapolis Grand Prix weekend after a solid performance in Friday practice for Rizla Suzuki.
Conditions were tricky in the morning session as the newly laid track surface offered poor early grip. The situation improved considerably in the afternoon though and Bautista set the ninth fastest time. Despite that result, the Spaniard feels there is still plenty of performance to unlock from the GSR-V ahead of qualifying.
“This afternoon I was able to improve my lap-time because the track conditions were better than they were this morning. We still have some problems with turning the bike – we didn't have good grip this morning because of the new surface, so this afternoon we tried to get more grip from the rear. We changed the setting of the bike, but because the track had improved and grip was better we lost a bit more turning in the corner.
““Now we know the track is much better, so for tomorrow we will try another setting and I'm sure that will improve things even further. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am happy with situation at the moment. We are in ninth position and I know we can still improve quite a lot. I hope to continue with the way we have been working today and in recent weeks in tomorrow's sessions and I think we can take the bike further forward ready for Sunday.”
Practice resumes at 3:10pm UK time on Saturday with qualifying getting underway just before 7 o'clock this evening.
