Rizla Suzuki’s Álvaro Bautista produced a strong first day’s performance to put him inside the top-10 at Sachsenring today.

Bautista recorded a quickest time of 1’23.261 from his 46 laps around the 3,671m German circuit, to put him in ninth place in the overall standings and just over one second off the provisional pole position. Bautista tried both compounds of Bridgestone race tyres to find the compound best suited to his Suzuki GSV-R. He is sure that if conditions improve, he will be able to reduce his lap-times significantly and move up the leader-board as he prepares for Sunday’s race.

Álvaro Bautista:

“Today has been a good day, because finally the rain didn’t make an appearance! This morning it was quite difficult because the track was cold and grip was at a minimum. I took it careful and just got the feel of the bike because I didn’t want to crash like some of the other guys did. This afternoon we tried different combinations of tyres to get the best mix for the bike. I started with a used set of soft ones from this morning’s session and then changed to harder ones on the front and rear. These didn’t give me such a good feeling and I swapped the front for a soft and this was better. The rear worked well, but I still had some sliding from the left side and found it difficult to get a good line through the corners. I felt I had a good rhythm throughout the whole practice and I think that I can certainly improve quite a bit tomorrow, especially if the conditions are better as this will give us more grip from the rear and we will have a good opportunity to move forward.”