Engine improvements leave Bautista ‘happy with pace’

It has been a short winter for WorldSBK, but a long one in terms of post-2022 season commitments and celebrations for reigning World Champion Alvaro Bautista and his Aruba.it Ducati team.

After a multi-day joint celebration of winning both MotoGP and WorldSBK championships in 2022 - and a simultaneous joint team launch - in the exclusive Madonna di Campignoni ski resorts in Trentino, North East Italy - Bautista and his teammate Micheal Rinaldi made a quick turnaround to south west Spain for two days of testing at Jerez between 25-26 January.

On a revised Ducati Panigale V4R Bautista had a crash early in the first day that he blamed on a too slow and off-line Ana Carrasco - the aftermath of which continues to rumble. He recovered and went on to set a higher total of laps than any of his numerous 2023 WorldSBK and WorldSSP colleagues - 174. He was third fastest overall, very close behind Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea.

With a second test scheduled this week at Portimao on 31st January and 1st February, Bautista reflected on his first outing of the year. “Especially this afternoon, with the wind, you have to understand which direction the wind was pushing,” the Spaniard said at the close of play at Jerez. “There were some places where you had to change the way you rode. Some corners it pushed you out and some corners it pushed you in, so you had to understand that. In cold conditions, normally I struggle a little bit more, but today I think I had the best feeling ever in the winter tests. I never had this quite good feeling in these conditions. Right now I am happy with the feeling I have on the bike. I would prefer it to be hot, but it is a winter test.”

Bautista also used a new SCQ tyre and said, “I tried both