Going Away For A While

Right - well there'll be a bit of a lack of updates here on the blog for a little while as I'm going away for a couple of weeks.
There isn't a great deal of Bati or 250cc news at the moment, but if you need your fan fix then click here and go see the people over at the excellent LiveJournal Bautista Fans community...
See you mid August. :)

Cheers,
gb

Have a new Alvaro Wallpaper

The image above is just a preview; click here for the full size 1280x800 desktop wallpaper of Alvaro Bautista at the end of last year's 125cc season in the special Spanish colours leathers.
Widescreen format, ideal for laptops.

Enjoy :)

Lorenzo moves up to MotoGP next year

(*Above: the smugnificently pompous Jorge Lorenzo)

I have to say that I'm actually kinda sad that the hilariously self-satisfied (though I will admit, hugely gifted) Jorge Lorenzo is moving up to the top class of MotoGP next year to race for Yamaha on a factory-supported YZR-M1.
I'd really wanted him to stop long enough in 250 for Alvaro to totally whip his butt; and even though Bati's debut 250 season has been little short of epic so far, it's not something he'll really do this year.
We did of course have that brilliant win - and brilliant last lap move - at Mugello, but I'd have loved to see a longer term full-on rivalry develop, as Alvaro is pretty much the anti-Lorenzo in terms of outlook and personality; and a very pleasant change I must say ;)

Ah well, it'll be nice to see Bati take him on once he moves up too...

Decent weekend's motor sport even without Bati!

Ah well, even if there was no 250cc action featuring Bati this weekend at least there was an amazing "European" (German) GP in Formula One, apparently scripted by the people who brought you Whacky Races (though sadly it continued Kimi Raikkonen's Nurburgring jinx, dammit!)...
And in the main MotoGP class there was an excellent weekend for Ducati rider Casey Stoner who completed the event at Laguna Seca with an 'icing on the cake' win, having topped all sessions. Nice work matey :)
I'm dead chuffed for Stoner, having really rooted for him last year in his debut season in the top class - one where he was fab on the bike, but sadly also seemed to spend a fair bit of time *off* it too! This year he seems to have found a perfect mix of team, bike, skills and maturity to take the championship.... is it only a matter of time now?

Alvaro headed for 2010 Ducati MotoGP ride?

According to stv21 rumours abound in the Spanish media surrounding Alvaro Bautista's MotoGP future; and that future is bright :)
The word has it - and you can check out her piece and article links by clicking here - that Alvaro may well be lined up for a 2010 Ducati seat in the top class. Check it out; fascinating glimpse ahead - and of course thoroughly deserved attention for our bloke :)

Outages on AlvaroBautista.co.uk

Apologies to anyone having trouble getting onto the alvarobautista.co.uk website to look it over, send e-cards or download goodies.
Sadly, so soon after its launch, it's suffering from some outages affecting all of my websites (more than 10 of them!) which are being addressed by the hosting company 34sp.com
This should be solved by a complete server migration very soon; apologies for any inconvenience in the meantime.
Cheers,
gb

Alvaro Bautista Desktop Icons for Mac OSX & Windows PC

I've been messing around with some desktop icon designs based on Alvaro's helmet; ideal for making your desktop look that little bit funkier and cooler...
There's two packs - one for Mac OSX and one for Windows PC - and you can use them to spruce up drives, folders or files on your computer by replacing them with these (as shown above - that's the Mac OSX version at 128x128 pixels by the way).
3 different versions, each with and without drop-shadow.

Click here for the Mac icons...

Click here for the PC icons...

Enjoy :)

Poor German GP Result For Alvaro

Well, that didn't go too well did it?
Bit of a dud weekend for Alvaro really; reports suggesting he really wasn't comfortable the whole time.
Having qualified ninth, he came off on lap three - dropping him to the back of the field - recovering to seventeeth place by the end of the race.
It's a shame as I'd really been hoping for one of his full-on fightbacks up to something like a podium.
One to forget really... :(

For the record, here's the classified results:
MOTO GP, 250CC GRAND PRIX OF GERMANY
SACHSENRING, 15/07/07

Pos Rider Bike Time
1. Hiroshi Aoyama KTM 41:16.191
2. Mika Kallio KTM + 0.119
3. Alex de Angelis Aprilia + 0.274
4. Jorge Lorenzo Aprilia + 0.579
5. Andrea Dovizioso Honda + 1.296
6. Hector Barbera Aprilia + 11.851
7. Marco Simoncelli Gilera + 17.308
8. Yuki Takahashi Honda + 22.309
9. Thomas Luthi Aprilia + 28.858
10. R.Locatelli Gilera + 35.983
11. Aleix Espargaro Aprilia + 37.377
12. Shuhei Aoyama Honda + 42.211
13. Dirk Heidolf Aprilia + 51.095
14. Alex Baldolini Aprilia + 53.416
15. Jules Cluzel Aprilia + 55.996
16. Taro Sekiguchi Aprilia + 56.105
17. Alvaro Bautista Aprilia +1:07.435
18. Fabrizio Lai Aprilia +1:09.728
19. R.Wilairot Honda +1:17.640

Not classified:
Rider Bike Laps
Karel Abraham Aprilia 19
Thomas Walther Honda 19
Eugene Laverty Honda 18
Julian Simon Honda 14
Imre Toth Aprilia 13
Dan Linfoot Aprilia 4
Alvaro Molina Aprilia 4
Joshua Sommer Honda 3
Efren Vazquez Aprilia 2

There's a full race report here...

Send Alvaro Bautista E-Cards To Your Friends

I noticed a bit of a lack of fun online goodies for us Bati fans, so I have bought the domain www.alvarobautista.co.uk and started to build a site.
For now it simply links to this blog and also to a postcard server that I have just built.
The postcards server allows you to choose from 36 E-Cards of Alvaro; cool shots, action shots and arty shots, and write a message and send them at the press of a button.
To go and send one of these E-Cards (the only Alvaro Bautista postcards on the web as far as I know) simply click here...

Enjoy :)

News - or not - on 2006 Aprilia diecast release

One thing I found out almost by accident through random bits of web searching is that there is a 1/10th scale diecast model of Alvaro's 2006 125cc Aprilia bike (or at least that there is going to be one) - made by a manufacturer called Guiloy.
The website I found it on had it listed for a "March 2007" release under the title "Aprilia RS 125 c.c. A Bautista 2006", and I've certainly not seen it showing anywhere - nor seen any turning up on eBay either.
I got in touch with Modelenium - a UK distributor - to try and find out what's going on with it; they say that after speaking to the importers that there's still no revised date, so it's kind of difficult to know when to expect it really...
Purely for info, the page covering the model is here...

Alvaro Interview / Feature on Youtube

This is a really nice clip, posted on Youtube by ruushki - it's one of the "Extras" from the 2006 DVD of the MotoGP 250/125 season reviews.
Great little introduction to our guy...

MotoGP - Germany; Sachsenring - Schedule

Here's the 250cc schedule for this weekend's race at the Sachsenring...

Friday July 13
250cc Free Practice 1, 11:15-12:15
250cc Qualifying 1, 15:05-15:50

Saturday July 14
250cc  Free Practice 2, 11:15-12:15
250cc  Qualifying 2, 15:05-15:50

Sunday July 15
250cc  Warm-Up, 09:10-09:30
250cc  Race, 12:15

(*times local - source: autosport)

Wallpaper 1

Not my first wallpaper *ever* of course, but my first one of Alvaro; one that I designed to share with the fine people over at the Bautista Fans community on Livejournal.com...

The URL for the full size wallpaper is this:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b144/antf1/personal/alvaro-bautista-1280x1024.jpg

Feel free to nick it and share it as you wish.

That Weird First Post...

Well - it's always got to be weird doing the first post on a blog.
Why's it here?
What's it for?
Well - basically it's a fan blog for the utterly fab Alvaro Bautista; reigning 125cc champion and super-rookie in 250cc.
I'm an F1 fan too and a graphic designer, so there may be odd other bits of stuff and downloads, but the main point is to follow in words and pics Bati's career and ever-amazing gifts as a MotoGP rider.
That's it really :)

Plenty more to come, including some of my Alvaro Bautista desktop wallpapers and info on all the forthcoming races etc and links to other great web resources.

Cheers,
gb