Bautista in top form despite FP2 crash, Rinaldi benefited from teammate ‘like me

The Aruba.it Ducati rider was third fastest in FP1 before spending large parts of FP2 on top as he looks to keep his 100% WorldSBK win record in 2023 alive.

A late flurry of laps which saw himself and Toprak Razgatlioglu exchange top spot looked to have sealed Bautista’s place atop the leaderboard, before teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi leapfrogged him with a time of 1:32.468s - 0.030s clear of Bautista.

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But despite missing out to his teammate, and suffering a crash early on in FP2 after due to a mistake mid-corner at turn one, Bautista feels as though he’s where he needs to be ahead of Race 1.

"I think last year we struggled a little bit in this track, but this year, especially from FP1 to FP2, we made some setup [changes] on the bike that worked well because of the layout, and the fact that we don't have too much space on track," said Bautista.

"Sincerely, the feeling with the bike was good today. I don't know, but I felt like I was riding so relaxed, so, so clean and not making a lot of mistakes. 

"One mistake that I did was in the first corner, I touched my gearbox lever and I put first in mid corner, so I just lost the front. 

"That was the only mistake, I'm a bit angry with myself for that, but the rest I'm happy with. The bike I think is working better than last year here. I feel good riding the bike this time on this track. I think tomorrow the track will be different.

"Last year, my best lap all weekend was 32.1. Today I did 32.4 for three laps in a row. So this is the important thing. 

"No, I'm but tomorrow, everybody will improve the lap time. I just can't say that today with the situation of the truck we had. I felt good and also about lap times we were quite competitive."

Is Rinaldi ready to challenge the WorldSBK champion?

While Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea can’t be ruled out, Rinaldi was quickest in both sessions and appears to be a real threat for victory.

This comes after struggling to match Bautista throughout last season, although things have been very different so far in 2023, which the world champion believes is a product of having himself alongside the Italian. 

Speaking about his teammate, Bautista added: "I think Michael is very fast and I think to have me like a teammate helped him a lot because he can compare his data with my with my data and many times he used very similar setup as me because also like riding style we are very very similar and like weight. 

"So I think it's very useful for for him to have me like a teammate. But also for me it's nice to have him so competitive because at the end the first rider you want to beat is your teammate. 

"So for me it's more motivational because if I see him go fast I said okay I can go at least like he goes. So yeah I think it's good motivation for both to have competitive riders from the same box."