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Alvaro Bautista not focused on beating Nicolo Bulega in WorldSBK 2024 | World Superbikes
Alvaro Bautista heads to Italy for the first ever WorldSBK race at Cremona with a broken rib and a 67-point deficit in the riders’ standings to his rookie teammate, Nicolo Bulega.
Despite these obvious negatives, things have been looking up recently for the Spaniard, who rediscovered a positive feeling with the Ducati Panigale V4 R, that he won the 2022 and 2023 titles on, at Most, a feeling that has carried itself to each of the rounds held since.
While Bautista admitted that beating your teammate and establishing yourself as the first rider in a team is the goal of any rider, he said that the position he finishes in the championship is not currently his primary focus.
“The first rider you want to beat is your teammate and it’s clear you want to be the first rider in the team,” Bautista told WorldSBK.com. “It’s a good target but it’s not something that worries me. If I can beat him, okay; if not, it doesn’t matter.
“I think [Nicolo] Bulega is a very strong rider. I knew he could be competitive in WorldSBK. He has a lot of talent but he’s also a really good worker, he’s really fast and we are recovering from a really difficult start to the season.
“For me, it’s [more] important that I can finish the season with a good feeling than the position I finish.”
Bautista and Bulega will line-up alongside each other in the factory Ducati garage once again in 2025, with the Spanish rider having signed a one-year extension with the Bologna brand back in Magny-Cours.
“I’m so happy to renew the contract with Aruba Ducati because it’s a wish for me to keep racing and, in the end, we reached an agreement,” Bautista said.
“I’m very happy to be here at least next year in WorldSBK. For next year, I prefer, as I always say, to take the decision year by year.
“My career has been very long. I just want to go year by year, and don’t want to put pressure on me or the team. The goal for 2025 is not clear yet. We have to finish 2024 and it’ll be important to end the season with a good feeling, in that I’m competitive and can ride the bike as I want.
“Then, we’ll think about 2025. At the moment, I want to use the remaining races of 2024 to recover the feeling again and push at 100%.”
