Bautista expects pre-season work to pay off

The Rizla Suzuki rider believes that the hard work he and his team are putting into their pre-season will benefit them when the season starts.

Bautista reviews Suzuki progress
Álvaro Bautista is taking his Rizla Suzuki testing responsibilities in his stride and the Spanish rider concluded the Sepang Test satisfied with the work completed.
Illness lay Bautista low for the third and final day of the first official Test of 2011 last week, but the first two days were highly productive for the man who will carry the Rizla Suzuki challenge in MotoGP this season.
“I’m very happy because I’ve improved my best lap time from last year, so it’s a good sign for us,” said Bautista, whose 2’01.687 placed him 10th overall on the timesheet at the Malaysian circuit, scene of one his two fifth-placed finishes in his debut campaign last year.
Working through a Test workload that included trying out different GSV-R frames, electronics, and a range of other modifications, Bautista highlighted the benefits that he expects to be able to take advantage of when the start of the season arrives.
“I think being the only rider is positive on the whole, because Suzuki is working only for me and they are making the bike to my requests. Now it’s very hard for me but I think that when the races start it will be easier and I think I’ll have more support,” he said.
“In Valencia (last November) I tested many things and here I re-tested the same parts, but Suzuki is always a very fast bike here. Here I cannot feel the big difference like I felt in Valencia so this means that in hot conditions our bike is competitive, as always. In cold conditions I think we are improving. It’s very important to have a competitive bike not only in hot tracks, but we need it to be competitive in cold tracks too so the work Suzuki are doing is of great importance.”
This week Rizla Suzuki Team Manager Paul Denning confirmed that John Hopkins would attend the Qatar Test in March as a back-up rider, a role he will also fill during the season for the team.
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