Bautista’s confidence rises, ‘Ducati allows me to be more precise’

Reigning WorldSBK Champion Alvaro Bautista was back on top of the times as winter testing concluded at Portimao on Wednesday.

With his best 1’39.035 effort easily under the current lap record at the Algarve International Circuit, the Aruba.it rider had rapid company. Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea was just 0.009s behind his rival with fellow Ducati rider Michael Rinaldi a further tenth back, while Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu also broke the previous margin on 1’39.4 pace.

Tuesday’s times had seen the same top three with just the Ducatis reversed, a consistency that bodes well for the Spaniards title defence.

“At the end, winter test you can see many good lap times but at the end for us the important thing is the feeling with the bike, the work we did with the bike,” Bautista said of his pre-season preparation. “Today I felt quite good, we try many things. We found something that can help in the future, we found a bit more grip on the maximum angle on the rear so I’m happy for that. Maybe the difference is not to big but I felt, so I’m happy with this two day test.

“I didn’t have expectation before the winter test started because we had a new bike so I didn’t want to make some expectation. I just want to try and let’s see the potential. Now I’m happy because the new Ducati allowed me to be more precise, especially on the engine side, for the character of the engine is more smooth. So yeah, I’m happy what I found in the new bike and let’s see if we can use in the races as well.

“It’s more from the apex to the exit, especially the first few metres of the exit of the corner,” he continued, when pressed on how the changes translate to his performance. “Also today we try a different setup in the swingarm and we found a bit more