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Alvaro Bautista believes learning and adapting to the Magny Cours layout will be key to his competitiveness this weekend at round 11 of the 2019 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK).

Bautista, who will depart Aruba.it Racing – Ducati at the end of the season after signing to a newly-formed Honda Racing Corporation squad for 2020, captured victory last time out at Portimao, and is still endeavouring to trim Jonathan Rea’s (Kawaskai Racing Team) staggering 91-point advantage in the championship rankings.

“My shoulder is much better than at Portimao,” said Bautista. “So we will immediately see what it’s like when I go on the track.

“I think I will have no problem to ride, but it will be very important for me to do a lot of laps on the track, learn the layout and be competitive in the race. We have to try and keep cutting the gap to Jonathan, but we are ready for the weekend and I hope to enjoy this new track.”

Only three rounds and a total of nine races remain for Bautista to miraculously place himself back in title contention, the Spaniard once holding a 60-point lead in the championship before downfall in form.

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Four-time defending champion Jonathan Rea is confident portions of the Magny Cours circuit will play to the strengths of his Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10RR this weekend as the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship heads to France.

Rea has stretched his points advantage out to 91 over Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), placing the Irishman in a comfortable position as the series winds down.

“It is very exciting to go to Magny Cours because it feels like the previous round in Portugal was a long time ago,” Rea explained. “I am ready to get back on the bike. Now we turn our attentions to Magny Cours. It is a circuit that requires really good stability on the brakes and also a bike set-up that changes direction well.

“I feel that we are prepared as it is will play to the strengths of the Ninja ZX-10RR in some areas and in some areas we need to find a set-up compromise. We need to keep one eye on the weather and one eye on performance. At Magny Cours you never really know what weather cards you are going to get dealt. In any case I am ready to get stuck in.”

Following this weekend’s stop, just two round remain in WorldSBK at Argentina and Qatar.

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Moriwaki Althea Honda Team’s Leon Camier will return to racing this weekend for round 11 of the 2019 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship at Magny Cours in France, the British ace recently overcoming a shoulder injury.

Camier injured his left shoulder ligaments during the Superpole qualifying session at Imola, and underwent surgery in July when it became clear that despite his progress, he was not re-gaining the necessary strength and range of movement to ride.

“I’m happy and eager to get back to the team and to racing this weekend,” said Camier. “Being forced to stay away has been tough but the situation was what it was, so I just tried to cope as well as possible, focusing on my physiotherapy and training as soon as I was able to start that.

“Since the operation, my shoulder has got better and better day by day and now I can’t wait to ride my bike on Friday. I probably won’t be at 100% right from free practice 1 but I don’t expect any problems in getting through the weekend.”

It was announced this week that Honda Racing Corporation will field an in-house factory team in WorldSBK next year to be spearheaded by Alvaro Bautista, placing uncertainty on the future of Camier and the Moriwaki operation.

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Andrea Dovizioso is thankful his tyre strategy paid off the Aragon grand prix last weekend, which saw him surge from 10th on the grid to second by the end of the 23-lap outing.

The Ducati Team rider suffered a pair of challenging rounds at Silverstone and Misano, making his performance on Sunday all the more satisfying for the Italian contender.

“It was very important to get back onto the podium after the races at Silverstone and Misano, and so today I’m very happy, especially because of the way in which we were able to get this second place,” Dovizioso commented.

“I started 10th from the fourth row because of a mistake I made in qualifying yesterday, but I knew I had a good pace and on the grid we made the right choice of tyres, going for the soft rear. In the race I was constant right until the very end, I saved my tyres and managed to gain place after place until I could pass Jack and Maverick to finish the GP in second place.”

Dovizioso is ranked second in the championship standings, 98 points behind reigning champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda).

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Red Bull KTM Factory Racing test rider and now Johann Zarco fill-in Mika Kallio admits he lacked experience with the current offering of race tyres at the Aragon grand prix, marking his first MotoGP racing appearance in over a year.

Kallio showed strong pace at the beginning of the 23-lap encounter, however suggested he made a mistake in tyre selection due to minimal time spent on the latest specification rubber, leading him to drop near the end of the outing.

Crossing the line P17, the result marked a valuable hitout for the Finnish ace, who’s replacing Zarco for the remainder of the season after he was benched by the Austrian manufacturer.

“My last MotoGP race was a long time ago so it was difficult to find the rhythm and get on the same level as the others,” Kallio explained. “We needed the laps today and I think we did quite okay. Everything can always be better but for the first weekend it was alright and we kept the mistakes to a minimum.

“The only disappointing thing was missing out of the points and I think maybe I made a mistake with the tyre choice. I was missing experience with how the soft or the hard would behave. We made good times in tricky conditions and I always like those and I had a good feeling with the bike.

“Who knows? Maybe we can have a race like that in the rest of the season. We’ll set some target now for the rest of the weekends this year. We’ll see how it goes in Thailand.”

Kallio was the only factory KTM rider out on-track on Sunday after Spaniard Pol Espargaro suffered a fractured wrist in FP4.

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Josh Brookes was satisfied to overcome early challenges at Assen’s 10th round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship (BSB), qualifying in fifth before charging to second in the opening encounter.

Despite acknowledging he discovered the best set-up of the weekend in race two, the Be Wiser Ducati rider managed just a P4 result, which still keeps well in the title fight as two rounds remain.

“After the struggles I had in the first two days, second in race one felt like a win,” Brookes stated. “I haven’t got close to the times I’ve set in previous years but the team gave me a bike I needed to challenge for a podium and although I didn’t have enough for the win, I was a lot closer compared to where I was.

“It was a good battle for second in the first race which I managed to come out on top of, but I was a little bit disappointed with fourth in race two as it was the best the bike had felt all weekend. Scott was on a different level to the rest this weekend but I’m only 14 points behind and I’m still very much in title contention.”

The Australian sits 14 points behind teammate and WorldSBK bound rider Scott Redding, as the BSB series heads to Donington Park on 4-6 October for the penultimate round.