Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) admitted that Friday at the Autodrom Most was his best Friday of the 2024 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship so far after the #1 finished in second place, behind only Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team). The reigning Champion has often struggled for feeling this year but declared “the feeling is back” when speaking after Friday’s two practice sessions for the Czech Round.
The double Champion has admitted 2024 hasn’t been how he wanted due to the feeling he has on his Panigale V4 R, but he was in a jubilant mood on Friday after taking second in the combined classification. He posted a 1’31.622s to claim P2, just a tenth behind title rival Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team). During FP2, when his best time was set, the Spaniard completed three stints. The first one was seven laps with all but the first in the 1’32s brackets. The second was also seven laps, and, again, he was consistently in the 1’32s bracket. The third featured three representative times, with his best time of the day coming on the first lap of the run.
When asked whether this was his best Friday of 2024 so far, Bautista said: “Yeah, but it’s easy to do a best Friday because we’ve struggled a lot in the season so far. Today, I’m really happy because from last weekend at Donington, we’ve made some changes to the bike. The feeling is back again. I feel good today and it’s been the day I’ve enjoyed the bike the most this season so far! It’s been a long time since I rode the bike like today. I’m really, really happy. Not for the lap time but for the feeling. I enjoyed it and I felt I could ride it like it was my bike. We made some changes to the setup of the bike, and it allowed me to force the bike more and have more feedback on the tyres and find the limit more. I started to ride as I wanted and today, I felt that I can do it.”
Friday at Most also features a return for the ‘titanic trio’ in their new colours. Razgatlioglu, Bautista and Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) finished in the top three with around half-a-second separating them when FP2 concluded. Bautista spoke about how he’d like to see a battle between the three of them, something that featured commonly in 2022 and a little bit in 2023.
On the titanic trio’s return to the top, Bautista said: “Experience is a big point, especially at this type of track in these conditions with a lot of heat! Experience helps a lot. Toprak is strong as in all races. Jonathan has been very fast here in the past; he won last year as well. I think the ‘titanic trio’ again on top on Friday is nice! For the fans, they’ve been waiting for a battle between us three. It’s difficult because Toprak is a step ahead of us but it’s nice to start the weekend like this.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com