Alvaro Bautista: Sunday changes at Italian WorldSBK “not enough, but we are on the way”

Changes made to his bike setup between Saturday and Sunday were not sufficient for Alvaro Bautista to improve on the third place he scored in Race 1, but the two-time World Superbike Champion was pleased with the work he was able to do during he Italian WorldSBK weekend.

The weekend started with three crashes for Bautista on Friday, and on Saturday he finished more than 10 seconds behind the victorious Nicolo Bulega in Race 1.

The Spaniard had anticipated on Saturday that the changes he expected to make in order to improve his bike setup might not have been enough to fight with Bulega and Toprak Razgatlioglu, and this turned out to be true in Sunday’s two races, as he finished six seconds off the win in the Superpole Race and almost nine seconds adrift in Race 2.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider was pleased with the improvements he was able to make, though, and felt assured that he is working in the right direction to close the gap to WorldSBK’s two current benchmark riders.

“Fortunately, after Race 1 we analysed the data and today we tried some adjustments,” Bautista said.

“For sure, it helped me a lot, especially in Race 2 for the pace – I can improve my lap times on the pace, the feeling with the bike was much better, I felt more safe and I could push a bit harder than [Saturday].

“It wasn’t enough [to fight against Bulega and Razgatlioglu], but we are on the way.

“I’m happy with the work we did and we have to keep this tendency for the next rounds.”

Bautista explained that the improvements he found related specifically to the hotter conditions of the afternoon, and that he didn’t feel much benefit to the changes he made overnight in Sunday morning’s Superpole Race.

“From [Saturday], especially we improved in hot conditions,” he said.

“[On Saturday morning], the bike worked more or less good, but in the hot conditions was where we found some problems.

“We tried to make the bike a bit [better] on tyres, and we did it, so I’m happy.

“In the morning, I didn’t feel a big difference, but in the afternoon I felt much better than [Saturday]. It’s one thing that we have to keep in mind for the next round if we find this kind of situation.”