Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) will want to put Friday at the Cremona Circuit behind him after suffering three crashes during the two practice sessions for the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. After falling in Free Practice 1, the last thing the two-time Champion needed was a disrupted Free Practice 2. Unfortunately for Bautista, that’s exactly what he got with two more crashes in the afternoon session to conclude a day at the Acerbis Italian Round he will want to shake from his system as soon as he can.

FREE PRACTICE 1: a crash early on prevents meaningful running

In FP1, Bautista was only able to complete three laps after he crashed in the early moments of the 45-minute session. He fell at Turn 7 after losing the front of his Panigale V4 R under braking for the right-hander, the fourth consecutive turn that goes to the right, before tumbling into the gravel. He was able to re-join the session with under a minute remaining as he left for a ‘shakedown’ of sorts on his Ducati machine.

Explaining what happened in the FP1 fall, Bautista said: “It hasn’t been the best Friday in my life, but I’ve had worse so I’m not unhappy! At this track, you have some areas that are bumpy, and I passed over the bumps and lost the front. Then I couldn’t make any more lap times in the morning, so I lost the whole practice. In the afternoon, the target was to get the feeling again to recover the confidence and to start to build up with the setup and the reference of the track. It’s a new track for everybody, just the second year so we need some references.”

FREE PRACTICE 2: two more falls but quick pace

In FP2, Bautista was able to finish fifth with a 1’29.730s but he endured two more falls despite his strong pace, although his time was half-a-second down on teammate Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati). The first crash came at the left-hander of Turn 2 in the first sector and, after his team completed the quick repair job, he was back out on track. The Spaniard then fell at Turn 8 on his out lap, returning his bike back to the pits. Again, he was able to get back out on track towards the end of the session and set his best time on his 15^th and final lap of FP2.

Expanding on his two FP2 falls, the Spaniard stated: “The feeling straight away in the afternoon wasn’t too bad, maybe I felt like I was missing some feedback on the front. We were using the same tyre as the morning crash. I don’t know if maybe there was something wrong. The fact is that we started to build up my pace and my confidence, and my pace wasn’t too bad. On the lap I slowed down to go to the box, I just crashed. I don’t know why because I was slower than in all the laps before. I entered the pits, and we made some small changes to the setup because the bike was quite aggressive in some areas, so we tried to make the bike smoother and easier to ride. I exited and on the first lap, I crashed again on the front without doing anything. It was very strange. In the end, we changed the front tyre to see if there was something wrong on the tyre. Straight away, I felt much better with the feedback; it was like normal feedback and not so bad with the grip. I was able to recover a bit of confidence after those crashes.”

POSITIVES TO TAKE: Ducati look quick, Bautista in the top five in FP2

Despite his limited running, completing only 18 laps across the two 45-minute sessions compared to Bulega’s 39 and the 43 set by Alex Lowes (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team), the most of anyone, Bautista was able to finish in eighth in the combined classification. The 1’29.730s he set in FP2 was his fastest lap of the day and was 0.572s slower than Bulega’s 1’29.158s which he set in FP1. The #19 finished as the fourth-fastest Ducati rider on Friday.

Discussing his goals for the weekend despite the crashes, Bautista said: “I’m not sure what my goals are; I missed one practice, and we worked in FP2 with two crashes and strange feedback from the front practically all session, just at the end I recovered a better feeling. I don’t know what my potential is. We’ll try to work tomorrow to have a good Superpole as grid position is very important here. After that, I’ll think about the races. First, we need to understand what happened today, if there was something wrong on the front and try to restart again and hope for a better or more normal day tomorrow.”

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