The wet conditions of Friday morning had presented an opportunity for Bautista to try to confirm findings he made at Magny-Cours, where Satruday’s Superpole session and Race 1 were in ꧂full wet conditio🧸ns.

“For sure, we were not in the best conditions today,” Baut🎃ista told WorldSBK.com.

“This morning was completely wet. We started by comparing tw🍌o different setups, because in Magny-Cours I did the Superpole with a ‘wet’ setup and the feeling was not the best; then in the Race 1, we did a ‘flag-to-flag’ setup — meanin🎀g a ‘dry’ setup but with less preload on the suspension — and the feeling was much better.

“So, today, we had the chance to try this in the morning, and I compare and definitely I 🦂felt better on the dry setup with less preload.”

A major strugg𒊎le for Bautista in 2024 has been qualifying, with his first front row of the year only coming last time out at Aragon.

With rain expected on Saturday morning, there is the possibility that Su🔜perpole will take place in the wet. Bautistaꦺ said that, following his evaluation of the two setups on Friday morning in Estoril, he will take the dry setup with less preload if Superpole is wet.

“Every time that you qualify good, at l♑east you have an easy life in the first fe🅷w laps,” Bautista explained.

“I think if it’s wet conditions for Superpole, we’ll use the dry setup with🦄 less preload, because I felt bett🐻er.

“But, evღen with that setup, we need to make some modificatiಞons. We have some ideas for wet conditions to improve the feeling and also the lap time.”

Friday afternoon was much drier than the morning, even if there were still damp patches around the track. Rain towards the end of FP2, though, left B༒autista with unanswered questions at the end of day one in Portugal.

“In the afternoo💧n, with not a completely dry track — because we had some wet patches — but almost dry, we start to work, we used the new [♏SCX] rear tyre,” he said.

“The feeling was not the best because I was suffering a lot exiting ⛎from the corner, in the drive area, because it seems like I don’t have good acceleration.

“🍌I don’t ha🐷ve a good exit from the corner, so we try to make some modification, but at the end of the practice it started to rain, so we couldn’t try [the changes] and we cannot improve.”

Bautist🌃a is one of two riders — along with Nicolo Bulega — who can still mathematically stop Toprak Razgatlioglu from his second WorldSBK title.

After Bautista’s imperfect Friday, and Razgatlioglu’s time-topping performances in both wet and dry conditions, Bautista was unsure about his potential to fight against th🍎e championshipꦇ leader this weekend.

“For sure, his [Toprak Razgatlioglu] level today has been really high in wet and dry condi🐼tions,” Bautista said.

“It’s true that, maybe, we are not at our best because we need to make some adjustmenꦿts in the bike to feel better and to ride the bike as I want. It would be nice if we can battle against him, but let’s see the conditions.”