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After the good feelings felt on Thursday in Barcelona, it was expected to see Alvaro Bautista in the top ranks on this second and final day of testing. Instead, something went wrong and prevented the Aruba.it Racing - Ducati team rider from extracting the maximum potential from his Panigale, relegating him to a sad 16th position, 1"4 from the record set by Nicolò Bulega. A result well below the expectations of the two-time world champion, who also ran into a fall at the end of the round.
"It was not the second day I expected. Already from the morning I struggled more than yesterday, because I felt I had less grip with the tires. I had this feeling all day long and also the feeling with the bike was not very good," recounted the 39-year-old, who certainly cannot be satisfied with how his Friday went.
"Physically I'm back, but today I wasn't able to recover the good feeling I had," he explained, " I don't know if it was due to the track conditions or what else, but I had a particularly hard time cornering the bike with the throttle open, I needed a lot of strength. In addition, the grip at the rear was also not very high and I had a lot of spinning. That was really my main problem, the fact that the rear tire was not helping me turn the bike, because it had no grip on the asphalt."
This is a new condition for Bautista, especially on the Montmeló track where he has always managed to make the difference over his rivals. However, the Spaniard is not panicking and is counting on fixing the situation in time for Round 2 of the year, staged a week from now at the Catalan track.
"Thetests are one thing and the race weekend is another, but I had definitely felt much better in the tests last season and I was also much stronger on the pace - acknowledged Alvaro - This year is different, we have to work, understand why I have these feelings and try to solve the problem."
Automatic Translation by DeepL
