Alvaro Bautista knows: He was the guinea pig / Superbike World Championship

“The only normal thing was the Superpole race on Sunday morning,” said Alvaro Bautista, summing up the weekend in Assen, which had nothing to do with the weather. He quickly found that he couldn’t push as hard as he wanted on a dry track run with the very soft SCQ rear tire.

He then had to avoid Michael Rinaldi, who was braking hard, to avoid a collision and went off the road. “That cost me a lot of chances; I probably had more tires left than the others at the end of the race because I couldn’t drive right away. For me, something bad turned out to be good,” Alvaro noted.

Aruba Ducati team member Nicolo Bulega, who traveled to Assen as the World Championship leader, was at one point 2.9 seconds ahead. But in the last three of the ten laps, Bautista took 4.3 seconds off him and the Spaniard won after an inconclusive race, 2.6 seconds ahead of the Italian.

When Bautista was in 8th place, he no longer expected to win the race. “I saw how far ahead Nicolo was,” said the 39-year-old when contacted by SPEEDWEEK.com. “I thought to myself, if I get on the podium, it will be like a victory. But lap after lap my podium position increased and my rivals’ tires were very damaged. I didn’t understand why because my feelings were good. I finally managed to catch Nico and beat him. I didn’t expect that.”

In the second main race on Sunday afternoon, the three-time world champion was narrowly beaten by BMW star Toprak Razgatlioglu, but took the championship with 3rd, 1st and 2nd places and is now six points ahead of the Turk.

“It was a shame that it rained at times in race 2 and we had to slow down a bit,” said 61-time race winner Bautista. “My tires cooled down – when I pushed again, I didn’t have the same feeling or grip anymore. It was still good because I gave everything I could. The conditions are what they are. There’s nothing you can do about them, you have to adapt.”

The defending champion emphasized how difficult it is to ride in the rain – he was the guinea pig. “You have to know everything,” Bautista explained. “Followers see the one in front and know they can do the same. This automatically gives them more credibility. The leader doesn’t know what to expect and how far he can go.”