Alvaro Bautista goes into this weekend''s WorldSBK clash at a track he arguably knows better than any other having completed thousands of race and test laps at Jerez over the course of a long career.

And it is for this reason he hopes the three races in Andalucia will be a 'return to normal' after for the first time this year being unable to compete with reigning champion Jonathan Rea at Imola - a circuit at which he had never raced before.

“After the last round at Imola, the next race on the calendar is at Jerez, a track I know very well, and so I hope for me that everything will be back to normal," said Bautista.

Last week we tested for two days at Misano with a good feeling even though the conditions weren’t great. It was an important and positive test for a series of reasons, also for the future, and we did back-to-back tests with various components on the bike rather than aiming for a fast time.

"For me Jerez is another home race, so we hope to enjoy ourselves here and put on a good show for the increasingly numerous Spanish crowd.”

After eleven wins in thirteen races, Bautista continues to have a vice-like grip on the championship standings with 263 points.

Even though the 34-year-old from Talavera de la Reina has never raced a WorldSBK machine at Jerez, he has been there every year in MotoGP since 2010 so the circuit, which is back on the calendar after a gap of one year, is very familar territory.