“After moving from Barcelona I feel much better”

Alvaro Bautista leaves Assen having achieved his goal. The Spanish rider arrived at the Duomo very close to his teammate Nicolo Bulega in the World Superbike Championship rider standings.He finished the third round of the 2024 season as the new leader, although he is followed by Toprak Razgatlioglu.his most obvious rival in recent years.

On a weekend marked by weather conditions that had already affected Saturday’s race, the La Mancha man knew how survive and get a good amount of points. In fact, this Sunday he took his second victory of the campaign in the Superpole race., which was eventually played in the same conditions, without rain. But the liquid element still marked race 2, arriving halfway to the race, in which Toprak felt better and eventually won and stayed within six points.

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Summing up the results of the competition in the Netherlands, Bautista emphasized how difficult the weekend was, since changes in the weather made it very difficult to find a sensation. Nevertheless, The current world champion was ultimately satisfied with the work done.

“It was a difficult weekend, with many changes in conditions,” he began by saying. “We never found the same track, practically. This morning in the Superpole race, I think for the first time we managed to do a full session in the same conditions.”

“The truth is that I am happy with the feeling I had (in the Superpole race), even fought well at the beginning to come back well at the end. Very pleased with how everything went. This afternoon (in the second race) the same thing, I had a good start, felt comfortable with the bike.picking up the rhythm with my references and feelings, but then it started to rain,” he continued.

Alvaro Bautista

Bautista blamed the arrival of rain for his failure to win the second long race in Assen, as it affected his rear wheel: “There was a moment when the rain was no longer light, but in some sections the water fell with greater intensity.” . We went two, three or four laps slower. I think this caused the tires to cool down and then when I tried to move off again the rear tires lacked temperature and grip.. I suffered. I even tried to catch Toprak in the last part of the race, but I made a small mistake in the first turn, on the last lap, and this forced me to retire again.”

But despite the honey on his lips, the native of Toledo noted that the changes he made to the Panigale V4R at the last stage of the 2024 season at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit had borne fruit: “In any case, in any case, the fight for victory seemed difficult for me because I didn’t feel as comfortable with the back end as I did in the beginning. This is what racing is all about: over time we can’t do anything and we have to adapt. The important thing is that after the changes we made in Barcelona, ​​the feel of the bike has improved significantly. I’m much better“.

“Here we were almost unable to work at all, because in those conditions it was impossible, so we used the same thing from Montmelo. I hope that at the next tests in Misano we can continue to improve the sensations. and find something that will help us continue to improve,” he concluded, already thinking about the Italian round almost two months later, from June 14 to 16.