Bautista looking to repeat top five performance in Texas

Alvaro Bautista (Pull&Bear Aspar Team) showed great pace throughout preseason but crashed out of the season opener in Qatar – before bouncing back to show his speed at Termas de Rio Hondo in Argentina, where the Spaniard took a P4 finish just off the podium.

Now it’s the Circuit of the Americas – a very different track – but one that Bautista hopes will reap similar rewards, looking to work throughout practice to set him up for another push at the top five.

Alvaro Bautista: “We are looking forward to arriving in Austin after a good weekend in Argentina, but this is a quite different track with different demands. We will try to work as well as possible to find the same feeling as Argentina and head into the race with a good pace and a good set-up so that we can fight for a top five finish again. Austin has some hard braking and acceleration zones as well as some mixed sections with a variety of direction changes. It will be tricky to find a set-up there because when you get the bike working well in one sector it tends to be compromised in another. We will give our best as always and hopefully we can have the same outcome as the last race.”