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The day of free practice at Portimao smiled on Bautista, who improved from morning to the afternoon. While in the first session he was 3rd, half a second behind Toprak, in the second he hsd to give way to Petrucci only by a handful of hundredths. Ruining his Friday a bit was the very high-speed crash at the end of FP2. An incident from which Alvaro got up with only a graze on his right arm.
"Especially in the second part of the session, the wind was very strong and in that corner it was pushing you. I changed the rear tire, to make a comparison between the standard SC0 and the new one, and the wind didn't help me. I can say that now I know I have to be careful at that point," he smiled as he recounted what happened.
The important thing is that Ducati's Spanish rider finally seemed to be back to his old self and Razagatlioglu no longer appears to be uncatchable.
"It depends, I don't know if Toprak has given his best, it's only Friday, maybe he doesn't want to show his full potential," Bautista declared, "I can only talk about me and, after Most, it's the second time I have good sensations on the bike. It is also the first time from one race to the next that the bike works the same way and what we found in the Czech Republic is also good here. This means we have found a real basic setup and I am happy. Right now I am not thinking about the other riders, but I am only focused on myself to get back to the performance I had last year. That's the first thing to achieve before thinking about fighting against the others."
The Aruba rider dedicated this day to preparing for the races and clarifying his thoughts on tires.
"I tried the two options on the front, the SC1 and SC2. With these high temperatures I thought the second one worked better, but the sensations were not good, so I prefer the other one," he explained. " As for the rear, I used the new SC0 in the morning and it's not bad, it has small positive points. The choice is not clear yet, but at the moment I'm leaning toward the new one."
All that remains is to jump into the fray tomorrow.
"I have no expectations. If I can be comfortable on the bike, riding the way I want and having fun, I will be happy. I don't know what the others will do, though," he concluded with a smile.
