Alvaro Bautista set 2'04.995 as his best at the end of day 1 practice at Silverstone circuit and put him on the top 3 of the session. A crash for Alvaro his morning was more a result of too much confidence rather than too little and he is already reaping the fruit of hard work completed in the post-race test at Catalunya last week.
Bautista said, "We have made a good start here despite crashing this morning in very tricky conditions. We had the opportunity to try the bike in the wet and that was important for us because at Le Mans in similar conditions we didn't have any confidence with the bike. I felt a lot better with it this morning and I was running third before the crash."
Bautista continue, "We'd made some changes to the bike and it felt even better so may the crash was me just pushing a bit too hard. On the dry track in the afternoon we also did a good job even though track conditions weren't perfect and the wind was a real problem. Anyway, we managed to improve my confidence with the bike, especially over the bumps, which was a problem because the bike wasn't absorbing them very well. We gathered a lot of data that I'm sure will be useful tomorrow, when hopefully the weather is a little better."
Fausto Gresini added, "I am happy for Alvaro, who has been able to step up his performance significantly. Overall I am confident about the weekend. Obviously we'd prefer it not to rain but I am sure we can be competitive in the wet if it does."
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