In the battle for third in the WorldSBK riders\u2019 standings, the momentum is increasingly in the corner of Alvaro Bautista, who strengthened his grip on the bronze medal spot for 2025 in Race 1 at the Spanish Round.<\/p>\n
The fight for the World Superbike<\/a> bronze medal has been between Alvaro Bautista<\/a> and Andrea Locatelli<\/a> since Danilo Petrucci<\/a> was ruled out of the final round in Jerez through injury.<\/p>\n In Race 1, Bautista got the better of Locatelli, the Spaniard finishing third while Italy\u2019s Locatelli could only manage seventh.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure it\u2019s important to don\u2019t lose points,\u201d Bautista told WorldSBK.com after Race 1 in Jerez.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the beginning, I saw the podium places a bit far but in that moment I thought \u2018The target is to beat Locatelli,\u2019 because at the end he is the only rider who can fight for third place, unfortunately for Danilo [Petrucci].\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the target was there, to beat Locatelli.\u201d<\/p>\n Bautista now has a 15-point margin to defend but, after being caught in numerous incidents with other riders this year, he is wary of the chaos the final Superpole Race of the season could bring on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, especially in the Superpole Race that maybe is more crazy, we have to be very careful and try to not lose too much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone here, last Superpole Race, wants for sure to make his best days of the season so far and you have to be careful \u2013 it could be a bit dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n Race 1 was yet another battle through the field from Bautista, who now seems to have almost accepted the early race struggles that have plagued him all season.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n But the Spanish rider ended the race in a positive mood about his feeling on the bike thanks to changes made overnight after FP2.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really happy with the feeling I had during the race if I compare last year that I suffered a lot or yesterday that the feeling was not the best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy team did an important change this morning and definitely I felt much better in FP3.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, in Superpole, we were able to make a not-so-bad lap time, but I did a couple of mistakes \u2013 I think a couple of tenths faster I can do. But, in any case, it was not a really bad position for the grid.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut this track is a bit tricky because the first sector, the corners are very close. I didn\u2019t start so well, so I lost some positions and, as always, the first laps I feel like a passenger on the bike, so it\u2019s difficult to ride the bike in the first laps.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI just tried to defend as maximum as possible and tried to not lose too much gap.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the battle for third in the WorldSBK riders\u2019 standings, the momentum is increasingly in the corner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[8074,6910,64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-223555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-alvaro-bautista","9":"tag-aruba-it-racing-ducati","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}