English
Italiano
with the collaboration of Daniela Piazza
Alvaro Bautista was also at Eicma. The Spanish rider stopped by the Rho Fiera Milano show and was warmly welcomed by the fans present at the Ducati stand. He recieved lots of applause and signed many autographs but, above of all, it was a chance to discover the latest innovations brought to the market by the Borgo Panigale company. Obviously the V2 was one of these.
Even if he was busy with many commitments, we were still able to intercepted the Aruba rider and talk about the recently concluded season.
"Unfortunately, it was a difficult year," he said. "In life, there are good moments and bad ones. Physically, I wasn't okay, and the regulations put us under a lot of strain, forcing me to work harder. And, as if that weren't enough, the level of the championship has risen so much compared to the previous season. Of course, I feel bad about 2024, but this year will be a lesson for the future."
You mentioned learning a lesson...
"Difficulties make one stronger, and I'll have to manage everything better for next year. I tried to do more in this 2024, but I ended up doing worse. You can't expect to go further if you don't know what the limit is."
The combined weight limit will most likely remain for 2025. What do you think about that?
"This is a wrong rule, In fact, like I've said many times, it's not right. In my opinion, until a year ago, the championship was balanced, Unfortunately, now it's unbalanced, and I don't think it's fair to increase the disadvantage, taking talent away from the riders."
How do you plan to counter the BMW and Toprak?
"It's going to be very difficult to improve performance in 2025, considering that the superconcessions favored BMW by making it a prototype, getting to the point where the M 1000 RR had nothing to do with the production model. Unfortunately, this is what the new regulations caused and, at this point, we'd need a prototype to beat them on the track as well."
What do you expect from the new Panigale V4, which will soon be doing its first test?
"The WDW bike was quite different from the one that will do the first tests next year. At the moment, I still don't know when I'll be testing it."
But the Ducati riders really liked it last summer. The premises seem to be good...
"If I try it and like it, I'll stay. If not, I'll leave it to someone else," he said smiling. "We'll see. I'm certainly curious to test it, because the one at WDW wasn't in the racing configuration."
We saw your response on social media regarding Iannone's remarks after Malaysia...
"Maybe he didn't really know what to say, but what he said doesn't correspond to the truth. In fact, I had to defend myself. Andrea says he was faster than me, but he did one lap less than me last year. If you take away a lap from me, I finish the race three seconds faster."
It seems your disappointment is evident...
"In his place, I would never have made such a comparison. Andrea, as well as many others, say that he raced without testing, That's true, just as it's true that I had a bad injury. The problem is that you don't go anywhere with 'ifs, ands or buts', because only what's on paper counts. If not, having reached this point, I could say that, if I had been born in Hollywood, I'd be a Hollywood star today."
