WorldSBK Phillip Island: ‘You have to have bigger cojones’ - Bautista

Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista signed off his WorldSBK championship-winning season with a double win on Sunday at Phillip Island.

The small man in the red Ducati leather suit became the biggest presence in the WorldSBK paddock this year by winning the championship one round before the end of the season. At the final round, with Christmas cards and trinkets on sale in the local shops at Phillip Island, Bautista pushed on, as a true champion should, to give himself two big presents to end the year with.

His Superpole and race two wins at Phillips Island were both very Alvaro - clever and unconventional in a wet but drying Superpole race and very fast with just a touch of the fortune any new champion needs to be in the right place out front at the right time to win the final red flagged race of 2022.

He has won 16 races this year, two more than the next best challenger Toprak Razgatlioglu and ten more than the rider who finished closest to him in race two, Jonathan Rea. Sunday was better than day one for Bautista, who was only fifth in the wet and dry opener.

“Better than yesterday because yesterday I had not good feeling,” Bautista said on Sunday afternoon. “When it’s wet conditions, I have to change a lot the bike because for my weight, my riding style, I have to change a lot the bike. So, all the springs on the suspension and everything.

When we put the dry tyres with that suspension, the bike is incredible. Yesterday was not a good day. I’m so proud about me and my choice in Superpole race.”

It was Bautista’s choice alone to go out on slicks on a still wet circuit for a potentially slow and sketchy ten laps. “Yes, my choice,” he affirmed. “Nobody had to use the slicks.”

Nobody told Alvaro not to use slicks, but the