Alvaro Bautista Moves On Up

Alvaro Bautista will be graduating to the fastest sport on two wheels next year as he attempts to take a place in the premier class of the MotoGP, after a successful run in the 250 cc class of the MotoGP. He was out on the track this week taking his Suzuki race bike through its paces, to see what they have to work on and what they know is ready to compete. He is getting valuable bike-time and advice from the experienced riders around him on his up coming year in the premier class and he’ll need all the help he can get to compete with one of the greatest sportbike racers in the history of the sport, Valentino Rossi.

The premier class will get some new blood next year

The 200 laps he’ll be on the bike during this period will go along way to getting him ready for the storm that he’s about to enter. He was even able to experience different weather patterns, from rain to wind, and this will help him get use to how the bike reacts to different or varying weather patterns. They were testing the engine and components on the Suzuki, along with the aerodynamic ability of the bike.

The question for me isn’t whether Bautista has the talent to win it all, but whether his Suzuki has the power and performance to compete with the other bikes on the track. They’ll need to get their Suzuki race bike running a lot faster in order to compete with the best and it will be difficult for Suzuki to get their bike up to standards in time for the 2010 MotoGP season. Bautista seemed to become more familiar with the bike after a few laps and he was running fast laps in the 1:38 mark by the end of the session. They should be happy with the 200 laps they were able to run on the bike and this should help them get the bike ready to compete. In fact, Bautista was very impressive on the bike over the days of testing, and if he can get a bike that can run as fast as the other racers, we should be in for a treat or two.

“Image: Zuma Press”