Alvaro Bautista ‘building confidence’ in Portimao WorldSBK practice

Factory Ducati rider Alvaro Bautista says he was able to build confidence in the Panigale V4 R during practice at the Portimao WorldSBK round.

The two-time World Superbike Champion comes into the second round 26 points behind his teammate, Nicolo Bulega, in the championship standings, and was behind the Italian by over 0.4 seconds on the timesheets in Portimao practice.

But the Spaniard was positive, in any case, feeling that he didn’t have to make too many changes from the setup he ended the test with two weeks ago.

“I think today has been positive for us because in the morning we started with the setup that we used in the test – well, we did a small modification on the gearing because in the test I didn’t feel really comfortable and this morning straight away I felt much better,” Bautista explained, speaking to WorldSBK.com after day one in Portimao.

“Also, today it was important to understand a little bit about the tyres because the new SC0 is different from the standard one, so in the morning we started with that [standard] one.

“The feeling in the first laps was good, but then it dropped a little bit, and maybe in FP1 the track is not in perfect condition.

“In the afternoon we tried the new development tyre; for the condition I’m quite happy because it worked similar to the SC1 but with more durability. This is my feeling – no big difference about the performance, but for sure [in terms of] life it’s much better. I didn’t change tyre in FP1 or FP2, so I’m quite happy.”

Bautista added that a change from his standard choice of front tyre compound in Australia also worked on Friday in Portugal.

“On the front, I was using the SC2 – normally I use the SC1, but in Australia, I don’t know if it was for the layout or what, but with the SC2 I felt much better, so here we decided to re-test and maybe it’s something good,” he said.

“So, the feeling was also good on the front, I started to build up some confidence.

“In the afternoon we made some changes on the bike to give me more confidence – some positives, some negatives, but at the end I think we were building good confidence on the bike, so I’m happy with today.”