The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship grid visited Donington Park, and it was an up and down Sunday for the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati squad. Nicolo Bulega was able to bring him two podiums on the final day of racing, with Alvaro Bautista requiring last-minute repairs to his Panigale V4 R following a crash on the sighting lap, before fighting to fifth place at the Prosecco DOC UK Round.

The reigning Champion’s weekend started with sixth in the combined Friday standings, but he could only manage 11^th in the Tissot Superpole session. In Race 1, he took a tyre gamble by using the softer SCX tyre from Pirelli but it paid off as he came home in third but that was Bautista’s only rostrum of the weekend. Sixth in the Tissot Superpole Race was followed up with fifth in Race 2, but not before a Turn 12 fall on the sighting lap.

“Why does everybody talk about the problem on the sighting lap and not the problems in the race race!?”, began Bautista with a joke about his pre-race fall before explaining it further. “I was trying the SC0 tyre on the rear and I was pushing and crashed. Fortunately, I have a really good team who fixed the bike before the race.”

Expanding on his Sunday race, the Spaniard said: “Basically, it was like Saturday. It felt similar because we didn’t change the bike. The only difference was I used the SC0 tyre on the rear but honestly, it wasn’t a big difference. About lap time, it was very similar. I was more consistent than Saturday. Right now, it’s the performance we have. We need something that’ll help us to improve. Until now, it’s the maximum we can do. We did that. In Race 1, we finished on the podium, in Race 2, we finished in fifth place. It’s the maximum. I cannot be angry me and my team because we are doing our best, but we need to find something to help us make a step forward.”

It was a contrast for teammate Bulega, who took two second places on Sunday and moved further clear of his teammate in the Championship standings. ‘Second’ was the theme of the #11’s weekend in truth, starting there for Saturday’s Race 1 before dropping down to fourth behind Bautista, and finishing there twice on Sunday after following triple winner Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) in the early stages of Race 2.

Reflecting on his weekend, Bulega said: “I’m really happy for Sunday because we improved the bike from Saturday, and we worked a lot on Saturday with all the guys in my garage. We found some solutions. Honestly, I improved the feeling. It was a great Superpole Race because I started very well. Toprak overtook me and when that happened, I forgot about him because he was very, very fast this weekend; it was impossible to stay with him. I tried to stay second and achieved a good second position. I understood that if I could try to follow Toprak in the first laps, I could make a gap to the guys behind me. Alex was very fast at the end. He pushed until the last lap, he never gave up, so it was difficult to keep the concentration and stay on the bike until the last corner.”

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