Spanish rider Álvaro Bautista powered to his twelfth win of the season at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit with a dominating performance in Race 1 of the Spanish World Superbike Round held today. Starting from the front row alongside poleman Rea (Kawasaki), the 34-year-old from Talavera de la Reina immediately set his own pace, taking control of the race on the opening lap and crossing the line with a comfortable gap of 7 seconds over Van der Mark (Yamaha). Álvaro’s win is the first by a Spanish rider at Jerez in the thirteen Superbike races held here up until now.
Unfortunately, his team-mate Chaz Davies was unable to get in amongst the fight for the leading positions. Starting from eleventh place on the grid, the 32-year-old Welshman struggled throughout the race, showing a scarce feeling with his bike, and as a result he was not able to go any higher than seventh place.
Tomorrow the ten-lap Superpole Race gets underway at 11.00 CET, with Race 2 following at 14.00.
Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #19) – 1st
“I’m really happy with this great win today. This morning we made a few small changes to the Panigale V4 R which allowed me to improve the feeling. In the Superpole we did a very fast time and managed to get onto the front row, which was our aim. In these conditions, because of the high temperature, I used up a lot of energy and also had to manage the tyre wear in the best way possible. On the opening lap I took the lead of the race and made my own pace, which I was able to administer until the chequered flag. I’m very happy to win again after Imola, and I’m proud to be the first Spanish rider to win an SBK race here at Jerez, in front of all my family, friends and fans. I want to dedicate this win to my grandfather, who passed away a few days ago, for sure he gave me extra motivation for this victory.”
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 7th
“Today’s race was a tough one. After not getting a particularly good start, in the early laps the feeling with the bike wasn’t very good and I struggled to get into the rhythm. Then, in the middle part of the race I found myself a bit behind the group that was fighting for fifth place, but I couldn’t catch them. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say, for me it was complicated just to get to the end of the race. The only positive aspect is that it was useful to do 20 laps in these conditions which allowed us to get a lot of information. We’ll have a look at all the data with the engineers and hopefully can come up with something good for tomorrow.”
