The victory in Race-2 in the Portimao round allowed for Alvaro Bautista to get closer and closer to the finish line of the first World Superbike title, with three races still to be run and with 56 points advantage in the standings on Toprak Razgatlioglu (82 on Jonathan Rea). Regarding the direct challenge with the Turkish rider, who was also the author of two wins in Race-1 and in the Superpole Race, the Ducati Spaniard described his Portuguese weekend and the strategies adopted for success as follows: “Before Race 2 I thought Toprak had been very strong in the morning – explained to the press after the last act of the weekend – Saturday, after the first race, I felt stronger, but after Superpole I thought I had more. So I didn’t have any strategy, I just watched what was happening. When Rea was first and Toprak second, I saw him very calm and I thought he was waiting, avoiding wearing out the tires. I realized it wouldn’t be a good idea to let him do it, so I took the lead and slowed down. If someone had followed me, he would have had to downgrade the tires and I would have had a chance to fight for the win. I did this and it worked, I’m happy, but I hadn’t thought about it before ”.
Despite the satisfaction with the result of Portimao and the others obtained this season, Bautista nevertheless remarked i weak points of Ducatiindicating the fields in which the Borgo Panigale house could still improve: “It’s the setup that makes the difference: rider, bike and electronics – he has declared – for example, at Turn 5 I had to take a tighter line than Toprak because it was more difficult for me to stop the bike compared to him. They’re different bikes, but they’re also different riding styles, and it’s always a combination of things. Yamaha and Kawasaki have more cornering speed, you can feel it in downhill corners, they have more load, while me I have to play with gas. We have some ideas for next year, I would like to improve the acceleration phase because at that stage I feel that the bike is very light, we need to more stability. This is the main problem. If we fix it, we can improve our overall performance. I have already talked about it with engineer Dall’Igna, who calls me after every session, every race and every test, and he knows what I think ”.
In addition, exactly as stated by his teammate Michael Rinaldi, Bautista focused on the technical regulations and on the challenge with the other teams, also making comparisons with MotoGP: “In this world, and with this technology, manufacturers should always try to improve, as cars do. It is Yamaha and Kawasaki who need to get closer to Ducati, and not the other way around. I’m not making the rules, but in MotoGP I’ve never heard Quartararo ask to reduce the power of the Ducati or the agility of the Honda, but only to push Yamaha to make a better bike. In the end, we will have to adapt to what the FIM will decide. There is no point in adding weight to these bikes: if I added 20 kg more to mine, in the event of a fall it would take longer to stop and we would have to increase the gaps. The level of the championship is very high, today we did a few laps within a few tenths of a second from the MotoGP pace and the bikes must be at the same level as the riders ”.
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