The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team ready at Portimao for the eleventh round of the WorldSBK and WorldSSP 2023 season
Just a few days after the Tissot Aragon Round, the WorldSBK paddock is already buzzing with excitement for another race weekend at the iconic “Rollercoaster”, as the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimao (Portugal) is known.
Fresh from last Sunday’s double win with victories in Superpole Race and Race-2, Alvaro Bautista arrives in Portugal with a 47-point lead over Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) in the Superbike World Championship standings.
Important goals also for Michael Rinaldi, who is called upon to score strategic points both for the Manufacturers’ standings (Ducati has a 97-point lead over Yamaha) and for the teams’ standings with Aruba.it Racing – Ducati having to make up 15 points to the Pata Yamaha WorldSBK team.
Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #1)
“We come from a weekend in which we learned a lot, managing to collect important results after a difficult Saturday. This is a track I like a lot and on which the feeling with my Ducati Panigale V4R has always been very good even if it is on this circuit it is not easy to find a setup that works well for all the sectors. The championship? We know what the standings are, obviously, but the objective remains the same: to work well from Friday to always take a step forward and have fun during the races. We’ll do the accounts at the end”.
Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #21)
“We’re in a good moment. In the last few races we’ve been able to perform without a doubt convincingly and we want to continue like this to finish the season in the best possible way, helping achieve important goals for me, for Ducati, and for Aruba.it Racing”.
WorldSSP
Nicolò Bulega and the Ducati Panigale V2 of the Aruba.it Racing WSSP team will take to the track at Portimao to defend their leadership in both the riders’ and Manufacturers’ standings (both with a lead of 85 points).
Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WSSP #11)
“There is a lot of confidence after the last two weekends where the feeling with the bike was really incredible. Last year at Portimao I had to deal with a problem in qualifying that forced me to start last in both Race-1 and Race-2 but despite that, the feeling was very positive”.
