RiderTua.com – After a long break due to injury, Alvaro Bautista dislocated several joints between his cervical vertebrae in a crash during a test on November 1 at Jerez. It will take longer for the Aruba.it Ducati rider to find his speed again like last year.
Phillip Island’s new asphalt is very grippy and the hard rear tire from Pirelli, which is only available in limited quantities, makes Bautista’s job even more difficult.
Alvaro Bautista: Tires, please don’t explode!
In the first race on Saturday, Alvaro Bautista was in 15th position after falling because his tires slipped. In Superpole on Sunday, he was faster than Toprak Razgatlioglu (BMW) who was in 3rd place, but he could not overtake him so only finished 4th by 0.074 seconds. In the second race, the time to turn things around finally arrived. The Spanish rider managed to climb the podium for the first time this season in 2nd position.
Bautista led the final lap until turn 4 until he was caught by surprise by Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) who overtook him from the outside, who surprisingly won the race with a lead of 0.048 seconds and thus also took the lead in the standings.
“If my bike is too light after the race, it’s Pirelli’s fault,” said the 59-time race winner, alluding to the high level of rubber abrasion.
The second race this weekend was stopped after Jonathan Rea (Yamaha) crashed and the race restarted after only 11 laps. This means that previously mandatory pit stops are no longer necessary.
Bautista said that he thought he could complete 11 laps without difficulty… “But it wasn’t like that. With the new rear tyre, first we did the inspection lap and then stopped on the grid. Then came the warm-up lap and we stopped again. Then the race started. This procedure caused my tire temperature to drop too low, resulting in poor performance in the first few laps.”
According to him, this incident was related to the problems he experienced before the end of the race. “I didn’t expect to damage the rear tire like that. I could barely beat the last three laps, the bike jumped in all the left corners and the movement became very aggressive. That’s why I could barely race at the maximum lean angle,” added the 2022 Superbike World Champion. and 2023 that is.
Rookie teammate Nicolo Bulega’s rider explained, “For me, the last three laps felt longer than the whole weekend. It was too long. I’m still happy because I was able to improve my performance from Friday to Sunday and I feel better and better with the bike. I’m not yet 100 percent like I was before the injury, but I closed the gap. It was a very positive weekend for me, I was able to build confidence on the bike after the crash on Saturday.”
What was going through Bautista’s mind when he was overtaken by Lowes? “Tires, please don’t explode. I can’t think of anything else,” Bautista said..
He said there might have been pieces of tire rubber peeling off, but he didn’t feel it… “I didn’t know who was behind me. But I knew he would easily overtake me because I had no angle.”
He added that at the final corner he tried to get back close to Lowes. However, he couldn’t go into the corner and lost a lot of time when entering the corner and also when opening the gas. “Under normal conditions I might have been able to overtake him after the last corner, but I’m happy to have finished the race,” concluded Alvaro Bautista.
In the overall standings, the defending champion is ranked 5th with 27 points after 3 of 36 races.
