World Superbike: Alvaro Bautista glad to repay Ducati faith

The Spanish rider managed to wrap up his first WSBK title with a round to spare thanks to a second-place finish behind Yamaha rider Toprak Razgatlioglu in Sunday afternoon's final race at Mandalika.

Bautista had looked in a strong position to win the title as a rookie back in 2019 riding for Ducati, as he won the first 11 races of the year, only for his campaign to implode mid-season - prompting a dramatic split with the Italian manufacturer that resulted in him accepting a big-money offer from Honda in 2020.

But after two seasons of Scott Redding falling short of the title, Ducati took the decision to welcome back Bautista for 2022 at the expense of the Briton, with the revived partnership starting the year strongly with two wins at Aragon.

After spending the first half of the season locked in a tight battle with Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea, Bautista embarked on a run of five feature race wins out of six from September's Barcelona round to give himself a strong chance of putting the title beyond the reach of his rivals at Mandalika.

"I'm so happy, because after two difficult years, many people trusted in me and I had the chance to come back to Ducati," said Bautista after clinching Ducati's first riders' title since Carlos Checa's 2011 triumph.

"They gave me the chance to do it again. I have a lot of experience from the past, I tried to be the best rider possible, to not make mistakes, and I think our performance has been really high.

"Also because I think sincerely we had the best performance ever from Toprak and Jonathan, they performed at a really high level in all the races, and I was lucky I made less mistakes than them. In the end the consistency was important.

"I feel like I improved as a rider and I can beat these two guys, a six-time world champion and one-time champion. We are breaking records at all the tracks, which means the level is amazingly high, and we can win even with his amazing level."

Bautista has spent the majority of the season claiming that he would not think about the championship, instead focusing only on trying to maximise his results in each race, but admitted that he felt the pressure to close out the title ahead of Sunday's second main race in Indonesia.

"Sincerely I thought about the championship [for the first time] on the starting grid on Race 2. I started to feel pressure, feel nervous, because it was the first time it was really in my hands," said the 37-year-old.

"Before it depended on Toprak's results, but in Race 2 it depended only on mine. I knew if I could arrive on the podium, it was enough.

"I tried to be focused, and when I was behind the other riders I could be focused. But when I led for a couple of laps I started to think too much, I did some strange lines, so I decided to let Toprak past. And I knew if I lost [second] position to Jonathan it was still enough."

Bautista added that he hopes his title, only the second for a Spanish rider after Checa, will boost the popularity of a series that he admits has always been seen as a poor relation of MotoGP in his home country.

"This championship is not very popular or very strong in Spain, I knew very well when Carlos won the title," he said. "Many people say, 'Superbike is a kind of second [division] category', and sincerely I had the same opinion. When you are in MotoGP, you don't have your eyes on anything else.

"Now I hope with this championship many people will follow. I think the level is not lower than MotoGP - Jonathan and Toprak are amazing riders and they have the level to be at the top in MotoGP."

Asked whether he will be using the #1 plate or sticking with his usual #19 next year for his title defence, Bautista replied: "The #1 will be on the fairing, but I don't know if I will have it alone or with a #9!"