Bautista was one of the busiest riders today, as he completed 41 laps around the 4,216m circuit during the two sessions He recorded his best time of 1’42.231 on his penultimate lap and is sure that both he and the Suzuki GSV-R have more to give this weekend. Bautista worked hard with his crew to get the best of the difficult conditions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as the newly surfaced circuit presented a whole lot of problems for all riders. The recently laid asphalt has not had much use, making it very slippery, but as the day wore on - and more rubber was laid down by the bikes from all three classes - the conditions improved, enabling Bautista to record a time three seconds quicker in the afternoon than he did in the morning.
Álvaro Bautista:
“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.”
Rizla Suzuki press release.
