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The tests at Phillip Island have returned some serenity to Alvaro Bautista, at the end of a winter in which the Spanish rider still seemed to have failed to find the right direction to follow this year with the set-up of his Panigale V4R. That's why the two-time Superbike champion can be satisfied, despite having concluded the first of these last two days of testing in fifth position, one second behind the best mark set by Nicolò Bulega on his Ducati sister bike.
"Honestly, it' s been a long time since I've had as much fun on the bike as I did today, so I'm very happy," Alvaro admitted, "Last year I wasn't, first of all because I wasn't well physically, I wasn't 100 percent. That affected me a bit in riding and then I struggled more with the feelings on the bike, with the new asphalt, the new regulations and everything else. Today, however, I enjoyed the track. Usually you can hardly ever ride here without the wind, whereas today was a perfect day. Maybe the track has a little less grip than last year, but I also found it less bumpy. When riding, I started to feel like I did a few years ago again: it's me riding the bike, not her riding me. So, I'm quite happy."
Bautista then explained how he and his crew chief Giulio Nava managed to achieve this result.
"What did we do? Nothing. We took the same direction we followed in November in the post-race test, using a standard set-up of the Ducati. From there on, we just tried to find the feeling," he explained. "In Jerez and Portimao, we made some changes to the bike, but it was difficult to get a handle on it because we found a lot of wind on both days and also the rain smeared the track. So, we thought those changes could maybe work out and we decided to start again here as we concluded in November. I felt good on the bike from the first lap, so we decided not to change anything. We just adjusted the gearbox a little bit, because having more laps we can use shorter ratios than last year."
Can Ducati use all the revs even with the fuel flow restriction? "Yes. As a rider, I have no problem with that. Maybe the engineers have more, but fortunately they worked a lot on this already since last year and did a good job," replied the 40-year-old, for whom nothing seems to have changed even in terms of the ballasting of his Panigale: "The weight we had on Thursday in 2024 was just a reference, but the important one was the weight that was taken after testing. Basically, last year we always kept it the same. For this year, I have not asked again."
With less than a week to go before the start of the season, the Spanish rider has not yet reached the level of his teammate but is convinced he is on the right track to get there.
"Bulega is undoubtedly a step ahead. This is a good track for me, but it is also a good track for him. He won here last year, is very competitive and has continued to improve with the experience he gained last year. Right now he is a step ahead, but I knew he would be very strong here. Honestly, my goal is to regain the best feeling. By being able to feel the way I felt today on this track, I think I might be able to regain a lot of confidence and get back to feeling like I did in the past. At the moment, my goal is not Bulega or some other rider: first I have to regain confidence in riding and then we will think about the rest - he commented - I am sure that, at least on this track, my sensations will not change and tomorrow will be the same as I had today. Today I started to ride more naturally and with more confidence, pushing more into the corners. It's not like two years ago, but I'm very close. I'm getting there."
Bautista then gave his opinion on the decision to break Race 1 and Race 2 into two, inserting a mandatory pit stop to change tyres.
"Honestly, I'm very surprised by the performance of the tyres, because Pirelli brought two new tyres that we didn't have last year. They worked really well and not only the performance is high, but also the durability of the tyres is very good. I think all the riders managed to do more than 20 laps today without having any tyre problems, and we also did our best laps with tyres with more than 20 laps on them. As I was saying, I think Pirelli has made very good progress and for me, right now, there is no longer any risk in running the normal the race distance," he said.
"I think the flag-to-flag is very dangerous, because you have to re-enter the pitlane and here the pit lane entrance and the pit lane itself are very narrow, after the asphalt there is the concrete and there are a lot of riders and mechanics working on the bikes - continued Alvaro - So, last year it was there because there was a risk situation, but I think this year it is more dangerous to stop in the pits. Speaking of safety, I think it would be safer to have only one race over the usual distance than to stop in the pits."
So the decision to introduce the mandatory pit stop even before testing was too rash? "I can't say anything about it, because this decision was probably made to avoid the problems we had last year," the Ducati rider concluded, "But we have seen that with the tyres brought here by Pirelli it is no longer like last year and it is possible to run the entire race.
