Aruba.it Ducati team-mates Alvaro Bautista and Chaz Davies have engaged in a sharp war of words about one another’s racing conduct after the pair almost came together at the opening turn of the first World Superbike Championship race in Portimao over the weekend.
Davies’ more aggressive inside approach into the right-hander caught Bautista unawares with the Spaniard forced to sit up his Ducati Panigale V4 R and run out wide, dropping him to 17th. He’d recover to sixth as Davies went on to finish second.
Watch the incident right here:
How @19Bautista has lost 12 positions
An unusual race 1 start for the Spanish rider #PRTWorldSBK pic.twitter.com/Hzea0tyLW8
— WorldSBK (@WorldSBK) September 7, 2019
“I am happy with the form because we lost the chance to fight for victory in the first corner," he claimed afterwards. "My team-mate touched me and I was lucky not to touch Lowes and crash. When you have team-mates like that, you don’t need more enemies.”
Bautista’s pointed comments irked Davies, who while admitting his move was ‘on the limit’ retorted the Spaniard is racing ‘timid’ because of his crash-strewn run of form coming into the event and is ‘overreacting’.
“I thought his comments were pretty strong,” he said. “I think he’s made bigger mistakes than me in the first corner in the past and I’ve seen a couple of incidents where he has taken riders out of races.
“It was quite a strong comment and I understand that he’s a little bit annoyed, but the fact is that I didn’t touch him at all, and I made the apex; it wasn’t like I was blowing through Turn 1. I repeat, that I didn’t actually touch him and that I did make the apex; I think it was a slight overreaction on his part.”
Davies: I was on the limit, but...
“From what I saw of Alvaro, he is a little timid on the first lap and we saw that in both races on Sunday. From my side, there are no hard feelings and for sure, it was on the limit, but I feel it was a slight overreaction on his part.
“I apologised because I sat him up and disturbed him, but I don’t think that if it was another rider in the same position that they’d have sat up quite as much.”
Bautista returned to the top of the podium at the end of the weekend with victory in race two, his 15th success of the season but his first since June’s Misano event
