Wh🦩at will be the first of two rounds in Italy this season, next month’s Misano WorldSBK round sees Bautista head to Ducati’s home track with a commanding lead in the championship standings.

Toprak Razgatlioglu is the only other rider to have won a race so far this season, but when Bau𓂃tista has finished, which has been on 11 🤡out of 12 occasions, no one has managed to beat him.

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Therefore it’s easy to see why Bautista is the clear favourite heading to Misano, however, the former Mo🎶toGP rider believes he could be in for a tough challenge. 

"I feel as ready as the other races," said Bautista after last week’s two-day tes𝓀t at Misano. "Thisꦗ track is always difficult because there is a lot of grip on the track. Everybody goes very, very fast and doesn’t care about tyre consumption. 

"This kind of race is more like the fastest guys are the ones who win. It’s not like Catalunya where you have to manage the tyre life. Here, yﷺou can push from the start to the end. 

"It will be more difficult because m🦄y teammate Rinaldi is a specialist for this track. 

"But also Toprak, 🥃he is very, very strong and has an amazing pace. In the test he showed that he is ready to win the races. It will be difficult."

During the test Bautista was faced with dry and wet conditions - t🥀wo types of conditions he’s already conquered in 2023 - as he went on to claim top spot on both days.

But after a set-up change during the final dry-weather running, one that had the opposite effect that he and Ducati hoped for, Bautista admitted he went 𓆉back to basics to conclude the Misano test. 

Bautista stated: "In the wet we tried a couple of different electronic set-ups and we found something very positive that hel♒ped us to have better performance.&n𝔍bsp;

"In the afternoon wꦐe had the chance to do some laps in the dry. The feeling, with the setting we tried, was maybe not what I was expecting. 

"We went back to our standard setting and suddenly I could go f🐻aster. 

"I’m hꦏappy because we did the test we wanted to do. The feeling with the bike is really good."