BAUTISTA RETURNS TO THE TOP 10 IN ITALY

2018-06-03 12:33
Ángel Nieto Team rider finishes ninth in Mugello, less than five seconds off second place
The sixth round of the MotoGP World Championship had some popular results for Italian fans, as Ducati took a one-two finish and Valentino Rossi rounded off the Mugello podium. Jorge Lorenzo shook off all his rivals and maintained his strong pace to cross the line with a more than six second lead from teammate Andrea Dovizioso. The Italian slowed his pace on the last three laps and was three tenths of a second ahead of Rossi in the fight for second position. World Championship leader Marc Márquez crashed out on the fifth lap and, although he remounted, he was unable to place higher than sixteenth.

Álvaro Bautista and the Angel Nieto Team returned to the Top 10 at the sixth round of the MotoGP World Championship, for the first time since their eighth place at Jerez. This time the Spaniard finished ninth, just 11 seconds off the race winner and less than five seconds behind second place. Bautista followed Maverick Viñales in the first half of the race, and with his compatriot was able to reach the group that fought for third position.
Teammate Karel Abraham could not complete the first lap of the Italian Grand Prix, crashing at the last corner of the circuit. The Czech rider, who was still not feeling fully fit, believed he was able to fight for points but his crash prevented him from doing so.


9th Álvaro Bautista: "I'm happy because the gap to the first and second placed riders was the lowest of the season so far. We had a pretty hard race. I tried to give one hundred percent all the time, and when I saw on the first few laps that Maverick Viñales was close to me, in front of me, I thought about sticking with him - because in the second half of the race he would be very consistent and fast. We fought our way back, catching the podium group little by little and there were a couple of occasions in which I tried to pass to Viñales, but I almost fell on one of them. Now it's time to focus on improving on Saturdays, in qualifying, because starting from higher up is easier."

Karel Abraham (DNF): "It's been a tough weekend for me. I feel still sick and not fully fit. I think we were more than capable of scoring points today but we had a very small crash on the last corner. I lost the rear end, but I was not pushing too hard, nor was I leaning in at an excessive angle. Maybe it was a touch by Redding on my wheel and that's why I went down at the same point as him. We will analyse the data to find out what happened."

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