The Aruba.it Ducati rider was third fastest in FP1 before spending larg꧃e parts of FP2 on top as he looks to keep his 100% WorldSBK win record in 2023 alive.

A late flurry of laps which saw himself and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Toprak Razgatlioglu exchange top spot looked to have sealed Bautista’s place atop the leaderboard, before teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Michael Ruben Rinaldi leapfrogged him with a time of ✅1:32.468s - 0.030s clear of Bautista.

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But despite missing out to his teammate, and suffering a🐓 crash early on in FP2 after due to a mistake mid-corner at turn one, Bautisꦅta feels as though he’s where he needs to be ahead of Race 1.

"I think last year we struggled a little bit in this track, bu☂t this year, especially from FP1 to FP2, we made some setup [changes] on the bike that worked well because of the layout, and the fact th🍸at we don't have too much space on track," said Bautista.

"Sincerely, the 🍸feeling with the bike was good today. I don't know, but I felt like I was riding so relaxed, so, so clean and not making a lot of mistakes. 

"One mistake that I did was in the first cꦿorner, I touched my gearbox lever and I put first in mid cor🥃ner, so I just lost the front. 

"That was the only mistake, I'm a bit angry with myself for that, but the rest I'm happy with. The bike I think is working better than last year here. I feel good riding the bike this time oꦏn this track. I think tomorrow the track will be different.

"Las𓄧t ye💫ar, my best lap all weekend was 32.1. Today I did 32.4 for three laps in a row. So this is the important thing. 

"No, I'm but tomorrow, everybody will improve the lap time. I just can'ꦓt say that today w🔯ith the situation of the truck we had. I felt good and also about lap times we were quite competitive."

Is Rinaldi ready to challenge the WorldSBK champion?

While Razgatlioglu an꧙d Jonathan Rea can’t be ruled out, Rinaldi was quickest in both sessions and appears to be a real threat for victory.

This comes after struggling to match Bautista throughout la🦩st season, although things have been very different so far in 2023, w🎐hich the world champion believes is a product of having himself alongside the Italian. 

Speaking about his teammate, Bautista added: "I think Michael is very fast and🍎 I think to have me like a teammate helped him a lot because he can compare his data with my with my data and many times he used very similar setup as me because also like riding style we are very very similar and like weight. 

"So I think it's very useful for for him to have me like a teammate. But also for me it's nice to have him so competi🌺tive 𓃲because at the end the first rider you want to beat is your teammate. 

"So for me it's more motivational because if I s𝔉ee him go fast I said okay I can go at least like he goes. So yeah I think it's good motivation for both to have competitive riders from the same box."