After impressing in preseason testing so far in 2017, Pull&Bear Aspar Team rider Alvaro Bautista had a muted Day 1 at the #QatarTest in terms of position – but put the pedal to the metal on the second day of action to take P7 and bounce back with a 1:55.245, despite a small crash.
After a Friday spent working on the groundwork for refinements to his Ducati GP16 on Saturday, the Spaniard is now looking to put together a race simulation on Sunday – and looking to improve corner exit as a key focus.
Alvaro Bautista, P7: “Today we made some more detailed changes after finding a decent base to start from yesterday. These small modifications allowed me to focus more on my riding and getting references because the bikes wasn't changing much between runs. We focused on our race pace on used rubber and tried a few alterations to find more stability. In Australia we found something that we might have confirmed here but we have to keep working on stability and on turning. The place I am struggling most is on the gas in corner exit. Anyway, we have taken a step forward in confidence and feeling. Let's see if we can improve the set-up tomorrow and complete a race run of twenty laps on used rubber.”