Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini) headed straight through to Q2 at Sepang International Circuit, qualifying in a best-ever P9 on the Aprilia, and then converted the impressive show of pace into a seventh in the race. With a downpour hitting the track after Moto2™, the race start for MotoGP™ was delayed until conditions were safe – but still challenging – and Bautista remained cautious in the early stages. Keeping it on the road as some big names fell foul of the rain further ahead on track, the former 125 World Champion impressed once again to bring home a good haul of points.
Alvaro Bautista (P7): "Seventh place is a good result that came at the end of a weekend that was definitely positive. We demonstrated good performance throughout practice, even achieving the best starting position yet with Aprilia. In the race, however, we found conditions that were very different from the rest of the sessions. There was much more water, so the feeling with the bike was not the same. I controlled the situation in the first laps, taking care not to make any mistakes and trying to achieve as much as possible. We saw a lot of crashes. The track was anything but easy so, considering the fact that the sensations in the saddle were not the best, we can be satisfied with the result and head to Valencia to finish this season well".