Alvaro Bautista loses a whopping 1.4 seconds to his Ducati teammate: Is the Spaniard facing a similar situation to the Superbike World Championship in 2024?
Ducati was the strongest force in the big showdown of the Superbike World Championship in Jerez. Factory rider Nicolo Bulega stormed to a commanding best time on Wednesday. And the privately entered Ducatis of Andrea Iannone (GoEleven), Scott Redding (MGM-Bonovo) and Danilo Petrucci (Barni) were also fast (Ducati occupied the top three spots on Wednesday). Former champion Alvaro Bautista, who was a full 1.404 seconds behind, did not perform as well.
Bautista looks back on “two difficult days”, which is primarily due to the changeable weather. The small Spaniard struggled with the strong wind on Wednesday due to his stature. “To be honest, I didn’t feel particularly comfortable, but at least it was dry,” he commented on the first day of testing.
On Thursday, Bautista and teammate Bulega stayed in the pits. “We didn’t want to waste a test day. We don’t have a lot of test days available to us. So there was no point in riding in the wet,” he explains.
No new parts: Alvaro Bautista is looking for detail optimizations
Bautista’s goal is clear. “The main thing is to find a better set-up for driving on a dry track,” emphasizes the now 40-year-old. “The test was not optimal, but it would have been worse if we hadn’t been able to drive at all.”
The Ducati Panigale V4R of the current homologation is facing its final season. There is hardly any potential left in the development of the hardware. “We didn’t try any new parts from Ducati. Ducati has worked very hard over the winter, but not on new parts. It was more about making better use of the existing base and improving in some areas, especially the electronics,“ Bautista reveals.
”We continued the work from November. Back then, we started with a new setup to explore new avenues,” the former world champion describes, emphasizing, ‘We need to take a step forward compared to 2024.’
Is Nicolo Bulega becoming an even greater threat to Toprak Razgatlioglu?
With the best time in the test, Nicolo Bulega confirmed that he is once again becoming the biggest challenger to world champion Toprak Razgatlioglu in his second WSBK season. But Bulega also had to struggle with the strong wind.
“I had to concentrate more on the wind than on actually riding the bike, which was pretty strange,“ comments the Italian. ‘The important thing is that I was able to build up a good feeling, just like at the last test here in Jerez in November.’
”We tested a change to the set-up and a different seating position that allows me to sit more comfortably on the bike. I liked some things, others not so much. We now have to get it right and find a good solution,” he says, outlining the plan for the upcoming test in Portimao.
But what are Bulega’s fabulous times worth? ‘We didn’t see the real level. I was fast, but Toprak wasn’t there. He was the fastest driver last year,’ Bulega puts his best time into perspective.
It was noticeable that he did many short stints and did not yet complete a long run. Longer stints are planned for the Portimao test. It is unclear whether Razgatlioglu will be able to get back on his BMW then.
