MotoGP Motegi, Free Practice: Alvaro Bautista “I'm not 100% yet”

Alvaro Bautista did not go higher than the eleventh time on the first day of the Japanese Grand Prix in the MotoGP class. The Suzuki rider, who lapped in 1:48.097, 1.307 behind the day's leader Dani Pedrosa, had some problems during braking. The word is up to him.

“We tried a different setting this morning and compared it with that of Aragon. We used the new set-up on the bike with the new swing arm and it was definitely better. This afternoon we tried the harder option tyres, because, although the softer ones weren't bad this morning, I still had a bit of movement going into corners. This track has a lot of hard braking and the harder front tire is better for this, because it gives me more stability. We don't yet know which compound we will use for the race, so we have to test it tomorrow too and then it will also depend on the temperature on the day of the race. In the end I had a pretty good pace, but I still don't feel 100%. I had a small problem with the gearbox and this made it difficult to judge the braking points and the bike moved too much. We improved in the end, but not enough and I think we can do better tomorrow. With a little work we can improve our lap times.”