Alvaro Bautista extended interview – Getting rubbery…

Alvaro Bautista Interview

Alvaro Bautista: “Here in Australia it depends a lot on the wind. If there’s more wind it’s more physical, as the bike tends to move more. When you exit from turn two and arrive at turn four, especially in turn four, you never stop the bike, pushing pushing pushing. But I prefer this direction [of the wind] because when the wind comes from the other way, the exit from turn two is crazy. It’s very difficult place.”

Q: Are you ready with the new bike?

Bautista: “I think from the first day with this bike, it felt good, we didn’t have to make big changes on the bike, just smooth details. Today we were more focused, yesterday we try some set ups but today we were focused only on tyres. To get the maximum feeling with the tyres.”

Q: Did you have enough tyres?

Bautista: “Well, no, but the good thing is that I did many many laps during this two days, yesterday I did 88 laps and today I think I did 80, so tyres were at the limit, but we normally ride and change after 14-15 laps, here we changed after 20 laps.”

Q: Is that more useful for the weekend?

Bautista: “For me I prefer this, because you can work more specific to the race, and less for the time attack. Especially this morning, because we had two SC0 tyres on the rear. I used one this morning just to see the feeling, but I didn’t have a good front, so I had to try with the soft front. It was crazy in the first lap I was almost crashing because no good feel from the front. So I can’t use qualification tyre, and in the afternoon tyre I tried to do 10 laps to see if we can use for the Superpole race, with the right tyre on the front the feeling was quite good.

“You always try and improve and for sure the bike is very good, but we still need to improve especially because the bike is not turning, well the Ducati character, so same as last year. Also on the stability, especially fast track like this one, many times the bike moves a lot. I think most of the bike are moving, but maybe for my weight or something, I feel a lot of movement. If we can improve that I will be happy. But I’m not disappointed with the evolution of this bike.”

Q: For the race, what are you thinking?

Bautista: “I think that this is different, for sure many riders are testing things, and in their race weekend you put it all together, so like always I say, what you see on test you have to be very careful for the race weekend. The idea is just to start on Friday, try to get this feeling with the bike, for me the important thing is the feeling with the bike and then we’ll see. I’m just focused on myself, try to do my best and that’s all. If we can do good, perfect. If we cannot do good, ok then we will cry.

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“I mean I think that in the race weekend, everybody will go fast, especially Toprak, he seems like he is struggling, but for me he is not pushing 100 per cent because I saw him on the track and he has pace, and when he gets behind another rider, he can follow him. Yesterday he was a 31 and follow me, boom 30, so that means he can do it, I mean he is not pushing at the maximum. Also I think Rea is working on the bike, but when it’s the right time to push, he will push. The test are the test, and important is the race. So we’ll see. For me the important is the feeling to have with the bike.”

Q: With the Pirelli situation, all the tyres you are using now are from last year, that were left here. So the tyres arriving tomorrow will they be the same spec, or are there some new ones?

Bautista: “They’ll be the same. The only thing is they will be new. Now some tyre was better, some worse, depends how much you warm them in the past, last race. So the tyres, they are not all the same. For the race weekend, we will have same quality for all the tyres.”

Q: You said about the behaviour off throttle for turning, the weight transfer or steering with the rear>

Bautista: “I think it is both, to go in you need to force a lot, mid-corner you need to make like more turning because the bike character is to just go out. Normally to make this bike turn, I have to use the rear, slide it a little bit then turn, but with this tyre its difficult because there is no grip, so if I make the bike slide… *makes crashing noise* so it’s a compromise, it’s not easy.”

Q: Which tyre are you happy with the most?

Bautista: “Well there’s the SC0 tyre and then we have two harder compound, there is one that is maybe less harder, that is my favourite. I did the race simulation with that and for me, it was giving me confidence.”

Q: Same problem with steering? What about the SC0?

Bautista: “Yea. With the tyre it’s SC0 comparing to the other, but I think it is not allowed to do the race. They are thinking about for the Superpole race, but not sure yet. Because today we had to try many riders to see if we can do it. I did 10 laps with the SC0 tyre and the pace was 30-medium to 30-high, and the tyre was good, looking good, the feeling doesn’t drop a lot, so that’s it.”

Phillip Island WorldSBK Race Schedule