Despite winning the first nine WorldSBK races of the year in convincing fashion, Alvaro Bautista and his official Ducati squad opted for a course of action at Assen that seemed strange to those outside – a major set-up change in FP1 and most of FP2.
Bautista wanted his all-conquering Panigale V4R to turn better at the Dutch track and even though the experiment didn't initally work, they ploughed on regardless into the afternoon with more and bigger changes.
“Today has been a strange day for us because we anted to try a set-up in the front to make the bike turn,” Bautista told bikesportnews.com. “Here it is more difficult to try this, because with one bike it is always more difficult because there you have two bikes and you can compare in the same moment.
"So we decided this morning to start with he new set-up on the front. The feeling was not fantastic but it was too cold, the track layout is different from the other tracks, the feeling was not to good but we decided to keep that setting for the afternoon and try to resolve with this set-up.”
It was an even worse condition in what were very cold track and air backdrops in the Netherlands, and heading even further away from he Panigale V4R’s current happy place.
Then in the afternoon we tried a big modification, especially on the rear. It is strange but in the morning we started with a different set-up in the front but I felt more difficult, the feeling was more difficult, on the rear.
"So in the afternoon we tried to resolve the rear, and we went in one direction. It was a disaster! So we went to the opposite direction - was a disaster! So I stopped and said, 'OK why not come back to our standard setting from the front, and let’s see what happens?'
"The mechanics did really fast work and we could exit the last ten minutes with our standard setting. It was much, much better and again I started to have a good feeling. Basically today, with only ten minutes of practice – FP1 was no good feeling and then in the afternoon again – so the last ten minutes is when I started to feel the bike more normal.”
The question the media were queuing up to ask was, why did you go away from a setting that has won you nine races in succession – why did you even try?
“Because we always want to improve,” said Bautista, simply. “We want to go more and more fast and not just confirm it with the results. As I said always the bike is too new and we need to discover it.
Also we have to improve. The easy thing is just to keep it like that and OK, I win. But we always want to go faster and faster. And for this is why we did it here. Maybe this is not the best condition to try, but we did it.
"Sometimes it works, sometimes not, and this time it did not work. But I am happy because at the end because we came back and started to feel good again.”
Ominously for his rivals on Saturday and Sunday, Bautista - back on a bike set-up that has given him those first nine race wins in succession – thinks that the layout of Assen does not really make any difference for him.
“I think if a bike works in some tracks means it I working well. This track is different, but for me the most difficult thing is the cold conditions. For sure we did not make these strange things today, for sure I think we would have been more competitive.
But at the end, the track is for everybody. Maybe one bike can adapt better to one track or another but I do not think we will struggle more on this track than another.
"I think today we basically threw the day away but tomorrow we will start to try and get a good feeling. The times here are very close and for sure there is not this big advantage that we had in the last races.”
