Bautista: “Suddenly the engine cut, without this problem we could have won”

WorldSBK champion Alvaro Bautista says the engine of his Panigale V4 R was not running at full power in the first two laps of Race 1 at Magny-Cours, before completely cutting out on the exit of turn five.

Robert Jones

09 Sep 2023

Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Magny-Cours 2023

A road block for his teammate in the final sector of lap one, Bautista struggled immediately despite taking the lead away from Garrett Gerloff into turn one.

Bautista’s lack of power then saw him pull to the side of the circuit whilst running second behind Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Expected to be a race-ending issue, Bautista instead got his machine working at full capacity before going on to claim a top ten result.

"It has been a strange Saturday," said the series leader. "In the morning I had a good feeling and in the Superpole we did a really good lap time and the feeling with the bike was fantastic.

"At the end we chose the softer compound in the rear at the last minute because in the morning it felt good and it was a good choice for the race.

"I did a good start but suddenly I felt the engine cut. I felt like the power was too low. In the first two laps the engine was not pushing. When I arrived at turn five on lap two and opened the gas the engine stopped.

"Because of that I felt like the power was not good in the first two laps because there was a problem. Then, when I stopped the bike I read the message on the display and it was one, just that the engine had stopped.

"I read the message which said you can start [the engine] again. That’s the message the mechanics see when they turn on the bike. I tried to start the bike and the engine started again.

"I was going to go to the box but the bike started to work like normal and the power was normal.

"I just did the race and I’m happy with the performance and I had fun catching the other riders and passing all of them. But it’s a bit tricky because without this problem we could have fought for the win."

Although it was an impressive performance in the end, and one that showed why Bautista will be in contention for victory on Sunday, Bautista lost valuable points to Razgatlioglu who went on to win.

But the Spaniard was unconcerned by the points loss and instead felt the need to complete the race as data for Race 2.

Bautista added: "I was lucky that the engine wanted to restart. I could fight for some points but for me, what is important is that we did the race for tomorrow."