Bautista: “I’m very angry with myself, could not enjoy riding at 100%”

Bautista finished the Malaysian MotoGP in 17th, however, it wasn’t without reason as the WorldSBK champion brought to light an injury he’s been dealing with.

The Spaniard crashed at the post-season test in Jerez, hurting his neck and collarbone in the process. 

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“It hasn’t been an easy weekend; I’m not using excuses but after the last WorldSBK race, we did a test and I crashed,” Bautista told MotoGP.com. 

“I hurt my neck and collarbone. I felt pain but after two or three days, it disappeared. However, here from FP1, I felt like I didn’t have enough power in my left arm. 

“I worked with the physiotherapist but it didn’t improve. It got worse and worse day by day and I was struggling a lot to make force with it.

“My crew chief, checking the data compared to other Ducati riders, said ‘why are you so fast like the others in the right-hand corners but you lose almost one second in the left corners?’ but the reality is that I couldn’t ride how I wanted. 

“Again, it’s not an excuse; I’m very angry with myself because I couldn’t enjoy my riding at 100%. 

“The good thing is that the championship is done; I’ll go back to Spain and have a check on why I lost the power and try to get better in the winter.”

Bautista’s rivals expected him to be in contention for big points over the course of the weekend, but with the 38-year-old dealing with different injuries, it comes as no surprise that he was below par

Bautista said the injuries were 90% of the issue and that the rest was trying to adapt to MotoGP machinery again.. 

“This was 90% of the problem,” began Bautista. “The other 10% was the confidence and the setup; with this problem though, what you do with the bike is difficult to understand. 

“I couldn’t push or do my best so it’s a bit frustrating that having this chance, I can’t use it.”