Promising first day for Bautista at Misano, Haslam aims to make a bigger step tomorrow

Alvaro Bautista rounds out a day of continuous growth at the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” in seventh place, just over three tenths of a second from a top-three position. Haslam follows close behind, but was left wanting more after making a strong start to the day.

Team HRC have wrapped up the opening day of the the Pirelli Made in Italy Emilia-Romagna round, its factory riders Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista in action today during the first free practice sessions.

During the morning’s opening practice, Bautista and Haslam got straight to work, focusing on bike set-up and making the most of the fair weather (air temp. 26°C, track 39°C).  Haslam was able to set a best of 1’35.733, in the final minutes of the phase, Bautista following suit to close with a fastest time of 1’35.809. These references put the Team HRC riders in seventh and ninth place at the end of the session.

Later in the day, as second practice played out in similarly warm and dry conditions, Bautista and his team made some changes in the bike geometries and was able to improve on their earlier time already in the opening stages of the 45-minute phase. Making continuous progress throughout the practice, the Spaniard set a best of 1’35.202 to secure seventh place in the combined standings (6th in the session), despite an inconsequential crash in the final minutes. On Bautista’s side of the garage, the main target is to further improve the bike’s electronics set-up prior to tomorrow’s qualifying session and first race.

Haslam continued to work to adapt his bike setting and riding to the Italian track and dropped his lap time by a half second in the final seconds (1’35.328) to round out the day in tenth position overall.