Zoom Alvaro Bautista

The 250cc riders in the Czech Republic were finally able to show their skills in the dry on Sunday, as the weather held out in Brno.

The competitors did not disappoint, with a spectacular race for the fans in attendance at one of the best Grand Prix events of the year.

The riders looked to stop Marco Simoncelli from taking another runaway victory, and Alex Debón was the man who managed to do so, taking the victory.

Mapfre Aspar's Alvaro Bautista took a well-deserved second place, coming back up from tenth on the grid. He needed all 20 laps to secure his place on the rostrum, doing so in an exciting final lap.

The Spaniard took his fifth successive podium as his season continued a turnaround, putting a difficult weekend behind him and closing the gap between himself and Simoncelli by four points. At the end of the first lap Bautista was already seventh, and two fastest laps took him up to the front group.

“It was a special race. I started very badly and had a difficult first lap; I had to push harder than the others to keep closing the distance”, he said. “I pushed as hard as I could to get to that first group. Once there I tried to stop the pace and conserve the front tyre, which I had problems with when braking and passing riders. It was a nice fight and I took second. I'm happy, but with 2 laps to go I touched Debon and lost distance that I wasn't able to make up. I thought that we could have fought for the victory without that.”

Héctor Faubel took the second Mapfre Aspar bike home in eighth, under similar conditions to those of his teammate. It was a hard race for the Spaniard, but notable for his positive progression. He took his fastest lap on the eighteenth time round, less than a second slower than the best time of the race. He equalled his best result of the year, previously taken in Montmeló.

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