Rizla Suzuki’s Álvaro Bautista ended today’s U.S. Grand Prix in the gravel after crashing out on the 14th lap of this afternoon’s race.

Bautista made a confident start from 12th on the grid and had moved up a place by the end of lap one. He produced a couple of very strong passes over the next few laps to move into eighth place and join the battle for sixth between the two Ducati’s of Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi.

Bautista closed the gap on the pair and it looked like the crowd was in for a repeat of last week’s exciting battle between the three, but unfortunately Bautista low-sided his Suzuki GSV-R and, although he remounted his bike, he was unable to get it restarted and had to retire from the race.

“I am very, very disappointed after today and really frustrated because although we did a really good job all weekend, we didn’t get the result we deserved and I crashed,” Bautista said. “We tried many different things here this weekend and used a completely different setting to last year and we managed to get the same good feeling as we had in Germany.

“This is the best I have felt on a bike in my MotoGP career so I know things are moving in the right direction. My rhythm was really good and I had a lot of confidence in the bike, but I lost the front without any reason and crashed.

“I had entered that corner at the same speed and in the same place in previous laps so I don’t know what happened. I am happy with the work we did this weekend and pleased with my level on the bike.

“Before the crash I was fighting for sixth or seventh and I know we can be there now and we have to keep working at this level and higher in the next races We now have some time to relax and charge our batteries, so we can be full gas for Brno.”

Rizla Suzuki and Bautista now embark on a short summer break before resuming the 2011 season at Brno in the Czech Republic on Sunday, 14 August, when Bautista will be joined by John Hopkins who is making a wild card appearance at the eastern European circuit.