GP legend Wayne Rainey coined, probably, the phrase ground war as the time when world championships finish their early flyaways and come back to Europe where everything is ‘normalised’.

For Kawasaki and Jonathan Rea, normal currently means getting getting blown into the weeds by the outlandishly-fast Ducati V4R and Aragon’s outlandishly-long straight puts WorldSBK series leader Alvaro Bautista firmly in the driving seat.

This weekend, all eyes will be focused on the 34-year-old Spanish rider from Talavera de la Reina who with his results is re-writing the history of the championship.

Since his debut in the production-based racing series, the Aruba Ducati team rider has picked up a total of six wins in six races, one pole position and four fastest laps on the brand-new Panigale V4R.

Bautista will be racing at MotorLand for the first time in Superbike in front of his home crowd, and arrives there with a lead of 26 points over his closest rival, Rea…

“I think that six wins in a row for sure has helped to make Superbikes in Spain more well-known and I’m happy because I feel I’m contributing to the growth of the championship, but this obviously means there are more expectations for my home round,” said Bautista.

Even though we did a positive test here, Aragon will be a new track for this bike, but as always I will try to be focussed. The target is exactly the same, we must work to get the bike as competitive as possible and then we will see what happens.”

Kawasaki are level with Ducati as the most successful team at Aragon with five wins - they have an edge on podium finishes though, 17 to Ducati’s 13. Since the second 2013 race, at least one Kawasaki rider has climbed on the podium in each of the 11 races run here. The last podium with no Kawasaki on came in 2013 Race 1, when Sykes had to retire, and Baz was fifth.

“I enjoy the track layout and we made some good progress last year during winter testing,” said reigning champion Rea.

“We will continue to work on making more progress during Friday’s practice sessions. The layout is nice and flowing with lots of challenges during the lap, so finding a good set up for the race is crucial.

Aragon in numbers

1. In 2011 Aragon became the fifth Spanish track in the history of the WorldSBK Championship, and the 44th overall.

2. A total of 70 races have been run on Spanish soil so far. Aragon, with 16 run up to now, is set to surpass Albacete (16: used from 1992 to 1999) to become the second Spanish circuit for WorldSBK races after Valencia (22 races).

3. The last 12 wins in Aragon were all scored by British riders: since the first race in 2014 the winners have been Chaz Davies (7 times); Jonathan Rea (3); Tom Sykes (2). They took up from Italy, which won the first four races here with Melandri (2) and Max Biaggi (2).

4. In the last four race weekends at Aragon (2015-2018), only two non-British riders made it to the podium: Marco Melandri (Italy) 3 times, and Spaniard Xavi Fores, 3rd in Race 1, last year.

5. The last 8 Aragon races (since 2015, Race 1) were won only by two riders: Chaz Davies (5 times) and Jonathan Rea (3).

6. Jonathan Rea climbed on the podium in all his eight races run for Kawasaki here.

7. Chaz Davies enters the Aragon weekend with 7 wins at this track. An eighth win would put Davies in a very close elite of riders who have won 8 or more times on a given track: Carl Fogarty and Jonathan Rea, with 12 wins each in Assen; Tom Sykes with 9 wins in Donington.

8. Carlos Checa is the only Spanish rider who achieved a pole, win or fastest lap in Aragon: he recorded the fastest race lap in the very first race held here in 2011.

9. An unstoppable Alvaro Bautista has recorded six wins out of six races in this beginning of the season, matching the rocket starts of Troy Bayliss in 2002 and Neil Hodgson in 2003: the latter went on to win the first nine races that year. In Aragon he will be already aiming for the second all-time string of wins, 9, recorded by Colin Edwards from Laguna Seca/2, 2002 to Imola/2, 2002, and repeated by Neil Hodgson in the aforementioned start of the 2003 season. The all-time record sequence was set by Jonathan Rea in the last 11 races of last season.

10. Given the current form of Alvaro Bautista, Ducati has the first chance to reach the milestone of 350 WorldSBK wins already in Aragon.