Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) had to fight his way through the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship field in Race 1 of the Pirelli French Round after he dropped from second to last in the opening laps. The reigning Champion finished the race at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours inside the top ten after a technical issue forced him to briefly stop his Panigale V4 R before he could restart it and re-join the race.
Bautista had started Race 1 from the front row and moved into the lead with teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi just behind, but title rival Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) was soon in front after passing the #1 on Lap 2 at Turn 13. A lap later, with Bautista looking to respond on the Yamaha star, he dropped down to 24th and last. On the exit of Turn 5, the reigning Champion pulled over and off the track with his bike coming to a halt.
He was swiftly able to get the machine running again but he had to fight his way through the entire WorldSBK field and eventually managed to finish in tenth place, limiting the damage in the Championship standings as Razgatlioglu won. The swing between the pair was 19 points in the #54’s favour. The gap is now 55 points between them with 11 races remaining.
Explaining what happened in Race 1, Bautista said: “It’s been a strange afternoon. In the morning, I had a good feeling, and we made a really good lap time in Superpole, and the bike was fantastic. In the end, we chose the softer compound on the rear at the minute because, in the morning, I felt good, so I thought it was a good choice for the race. I had a good start, but I suddenly felt the engine had some problems because I felt like the power was too low. In the first two laps, the engine wasn’t pushing like normal. When I got to Turn 5 on Lap 3, I re-opened the gas and the engine stopped. I thought maybe the power was not good in the first two laps because there was a problem. When I stopped the bike, I read a message on the display that it was on, only the engine stopped.
“I read a message that said I could start. It was the message that mechanics see when they switch on the bike. I tried to restart the bike and go, the engine started again, and I thought I’d go to the box with the bike. But the bike started to work like normal. The power was normal. I just did the race and I’m happy with the performance and because I had a lot of fun catching the riders and passing all of them! Without that problem, maybe we could fight for the win.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com