Bautista: ‘I don't agree with the penalty, was a warning to not be relaxed’

After taking pole ahead of Rea, the reigning WorldSBK champion was demoted to fourth after he was deemed to be riding too slowly after exiting pit lane. 

Bautista was not the only rider who rolled off and subsequently got hit with a grid penalty, as fellow Ducati rider Axel Bassani was also penalised. 

• Assen World Superbike Race (1) Results: Bautista in a class of his own
• Assen World Superbike Superpole Results: Bautista gets the better of Rea

Like Bautista, Bassani also recovered to finish in a strong P5, although that could have been fourth had he come out on top of his late-race battle with Andrea Locatelli. 

But while Bautista was victorious for the sixth time in seven races this season, he remained angered by the penalty: "I didn’t like the penalty because I’m not agree with the decision. But in any case, I took the penalty in a positive way. 

"It gave me more energy because after practice and pole position I was too relaxed. Maybe everything seemed easy. The penalty was a warning to say ‘you have to push’. It helped me to not relax."

Bautista eventually won the race by over three seconds in what was another dominant showing.

However, the factory Ducati rider said Rea’s pace mid-race was a surprise and that he didn’t expect such a challenge to take place for as long as it did.

Bautista said: "Today was not as easy as people might think after yesterday’s practice. Firstly, with the penalty we started from the second row and it was important not to lose positions at the start and not be in the group and taking some risks with other riders. 

"I can make a good start and could be in third position. I fought a little bit with Lowes and then when I was behind Toprak and Jonathan I was watching the track conditions because today it was a bit different from yesterday. 

"I had to understand how much I could push with this temperature. After a few laps I could understand the track and I started to feel like I could push harder than at the beginning. 

"[When] I got the lead I increased the pace by two tenths, something like that. Jonathan was there and I was surprised because in the practice he didn’t make that pace, but in the race he can stay with me a bit. 

"In the end, my target was to push the tyre and try to arrive at the end with less tyre. With five or six laps to go I saw the gap was increasing a little bit so I pushed a bit more to get more advantage. I’m so happy to win again."