The wet conditions of Friday morning had presented an opportunity for Ba🎶utista to try to confirm findings he made at Magny-Cours, where Satruday’s Superpole session and Race 1 were in full wet conditions.

“For sure, we꧒ were not in the best conditions today,” Bautista told WorldSBK.com.

“This morning was completely wet. We started by comparing two differe🤪nt setups, because in Magny-Cours I did the Superpole with a ‘wet’ setup and the feeling was not the best; then in the Race 1, we did a ‘flag-to-flag’ setup — meaning a ‘dry’ setup but with less preload on the suspension — and the feeling was much better.

“So, today, we had the chance to try this in tꦍhe morning, and I compare and definitely I felt better on th𒀰e dry setup with less preload.”

A major struggle for Bautista in 2024 has been qualifying, with his first front ro꧙w of the year only coming last time out at Aragon.

With rain expected on Saturday morning, there is the possibility that Superpole will take place in the wet. Bautista said that, following his evaluation of the two s🍨etups on Friday morning in Estoril, he will take the dry setup with less preload if Superpole is wet.

“Every ꦗtꦓime that you qualify good, at least you have an easy life in the first few laps,” Bautista explained.

“I think ওif it’s wet conditions for Superpole, we’ll use the dry setup with less preload, because I felt better.

“But, even with that setup, we need to make some modifications. We have some ideas for w🔯et conditions to improve the feeling and also the lap time.”

Friday afternoon was much drier than the morning, even if there were still damp patches around the track. Rain towards the end of FP2, though, left Bautista with unanswered questions at the end of day one in Portugaജl.

“In the afternoon, with not a completely dry track — because we had some wet patches — butᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ almost dౠry, we start to work, we used the new [SCX] rear tyre,” he said.

“The feeling was not the best bec💞ause I was suffering a lot exiting from the corner, in the drive area, because it seems like I don’t ༒have good acceleration.

“I don’t have a good exit from the corner, so we try to make some modification, but at the end of the practice it started 🎐to rain,🅰 so we couldn’t try [the changes] and we cannot improve.”

Bautista is one of🐓 two riders — along with Nicolo Bulega — who can still mathematically stop Toprak Razgatlioglu from his second WorldSBK title.

After Bautista’s imperfect Friday, and Razgatlioglu’s time-topping performances in both wet and dry conditions, Bautista was unsure about hiওs potential to fight against the championsh🤡ip leader this weekend.

“For sure, his [Toprak Razgatlioglu] level today has been ꦫreally high in wet 🌞and dry conditions,” Bautista said.

“It’s true that, may💫be, we are not at our bes🌌t because we need to make some adjustments in the bike to feel better and to ride the bike as I want. It would be nice if we can battle against him, but let’s see the conditions.”