The Backyard Beckons: Confident Bautista ready to resume good form in the U.S.
The MotoGP World Championship returns from a three-week summer break this weekend as the paddock continues on American soil, but moves east from Laguna Seca, California, to the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The tenth round of the season for the top class also sees the return to action of the Moto3 and Moto2 categories after they skipped the Laguna round, with the riders’ batteries fully recharged for the decisive second half of the season.
Results at Laguna provided a timely confidence boost for Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini rider Alvaro Bautista, whose strong podium challenge has raised motivation and determination in the team ahead of a packed schedule over the next three months. Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s hard work alongside technical partners Showa and Nissin is finally starting to bear fruit and the high performance level of the Honda RC213V is giving Alvaro Bautista the opportunity to battle at the sharp end of the field. The Spaniard now faces another weekend of hard work as he looks to adapt his machine setting to the demands of Indianapolis and mount another serious challenge for the rostrum champagne.
Alvaro Bautista “I feel sure that we are in our best form of the season so far after a good result at Laguna Seca. We were competitive there and in terms of my feeling with the bike over the course of the weekend it was probably the best I have ever had in MotoGP. Thanks to the hard work of the team we had a great bike that I was able to really enjoy riding and even though we had the chance to finish on the podium at the end I was still very happy with the result. After Laguna Seca we were able to get a few days off and I took the opportunity to head for the beach with some friends and switch my mind off racing. After a few days I got back into training hard for the second half of the championship and spent a few days at my friend Colin Edwards’ bootcamp and had great fun riding with him and working on my riding. Now I am ready and looking forward to three races in as many weekends. Indianapolis is a strange circuit and it’s different to most of the places we go to, because amongst other things it runs anticlockwise. There are three different kinds of track surface and that also makes it hard, but we fought for the podium there last year and after such a good weekend at Laguna last time out I am hoping for better this year. Me and the team are feeling very confident that we can fight for a top result.”
Fausto Gresini “Alvaro Bautista’s result at Laguna Seca definitely gave the whole team a lift going into the second half of the season. The bike has improved a lot and the work that has been done between our engineers and the guys from Showa and Nissin is starting to pay off as we hoped. We have been able to give Alvaro a bike that he can enjoy riding fast and we are in the right shape to be consistent frontrunners, as we expected to be from the start of the season. Indianapolis is not an easy track, but the platform is there for us to have another strong weekend.”
Source: Gresini Racing
