This wasn’t for sure the most impressive preseason for Álvaro Bautista in the Superbike World Championship, and the two time champion even said that for the start of the season there are no expectations, while saying that, despite that, one thing are the tests, and the races is another.
The Ducati rider first began to say that his physical condition has improved, and that he is now feeling the bike more: ‘After the last day of testing here at Phillip Island, I felt a bit better especially because my physical condition improved a lot from the test before. I’m quite happy because it was the first time in pre-season that I started to feel the bike more, work on the feeling and try to increase my performance. It’s been a tough winter. At home, I worked a lot to recover as soon as possible but it was really slow’.
As for the first round of the season, Bautista confesses he doesn’t have a specific goal in his mind: ‘I don’t have any expectations for this weekend. It’s the first round of the season. It’s a long Championship. It’s difficult because testing is testing, and racing is racing. This year’s grid is really competitive, there are a lot of very fast riders’.
Bautista doesn’t even «risk» making any predictions: ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t bet on any rider because anything can happen! The Championship is long. We are at Round 1, a very strange one for everything; my condition, the new schedule… we will try to do our best here, get the maximum and then think about the next one’.