Bautista in trouble?
Double WSBK champion 16th fastest and riding hurt as new teammate Bulega tops test
Aliteral pain in the neck almost completely halted Alvaro Bautista from training properly this winter and left him 16th fastest and 1.77s off his teammate in the first official World Superbike test in Jerez. The back-to-back title winner of 2022 and 2023 revealed that he’s had the most difficult pre-season of his career thanks to a neck injury sustained at the same circuit in November.
Just days after the finale in which Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu crossed the finish line side-by-side, the 39-year-old hit one of the dreaded wet patches at the last corner where water seeps through the surface. The resultant crash saw him land on his head and, although later that day he appeared fine, he was subsequently in agony – the problem wrecking his MotoGP wildcard outing in Malaysia.
Bautista lives by a strict schedule. From getting up in the morning, seeing his daughters off to school, intense physical training and patrolling the aisles of his local Mercadona supermarket, he times everything almost down to the second. The fact his neck and shoulder prevented him from proper training has disturbed this karma. Having said that, his race pace in Jerez didn’t look that bad even though he was put in the shade by new teammate Nicolo Bulega, who replaces Michael Ruben Rinaldi (now at Motocorsa).
To make matters worse, from this season any rider who weighs less than 80kg when fully kitted up must make this up with ballast of half a kilo for every kilo they are under that threshold. Bautista weighs around 67kg, 13kg under, so equating to approximately 6.5kg of
‘I lapped without the pain getting any worse’
ballast depending on his exact weight. There’s no doubt Bautista – who turns 40 in November – isn’t as gaunt as before. Whether that’s completely to do with his lack of training or a tactic remains to be seen; if he is able to bulk up, he’ll require less weight adding to the bike. A bulkier rider throwing a lighter bike around is preferable to a slim rider managing a heavy one. Ducati are also experimenting with heavier race suits.
Some riders, such as Michael van der Mark at BMW, are taking advantage of a new maximum fuel allowance of 21 litres instead of 24. For the Dutchman, the smaller tank allows more space to lower the seat and improve his centre of gravity. Bautista does not have this luxury because Ducati were already using around 21 litres of fuel.
Cynics will claim Bautista is sandbagging. Could he afford to do that while needing to test? “I felt better than yesterday but not perfect,” he said on Thursday. “There’s pain in left-hand corners. I did many laps without the pain getting worse, so I’m happy about that. The nerve damage meant a lot of physio before Christmas. The bike is too heavy. I need to feel 100%, then we can work on the bike. If you want details, ask the engineers [laughs].”