A third-place finish was a 'relief' for Alvaro Bautista, but he is still not satisfied with the feeling of his Ducati.

Ahead of the Emilia-Romagna World Superbike Round, Alvaro Bautista had been informed by Ducati that they would not renew his contract for the 2026 season.

Going into the weekend, Bautista had not featured on a World Superbike podium at Most, and looked like he was in for another difficult weekend after a poor Qualifying performance.

But after a sixth place in Race One and a fifth in the Superpole Race on Sunday morning, he was able to secure a podium in Race Two as he finished in third.

"It is a big relief," Bautista told WorldSBK.com after he was back on the podium.

"From Cremona, we have not touched the podium for one reason or another. But I am happy the way we ended the weekend, but I am not happy with the feeling of the bike.

"Today, I struggled a lot in the hot conditions. Yesterday I started from the back, and I had the pace to fight for the podium. But it was not enough to arrive with them, but today I started in fifth place after the Superpole Race.

"It was a bit easier, so I could push from the beginning, the feeling was the same as yesterday. It was difficult to stop the bike, make direction changes, to enter and exit corners; the bike pushed me out.

"I was fighting all race with the bike, but in the end I kept consistent and I did not make mistakes like I did yesterday to overtake other riders.

"In the end, finishing on the podium is always nice, but the problem is that the feeling was not the best. We need to improve in hot conditions, and the gap to the riders in front of me is too big right now, so we need to reduce that gap.

"I am happy because after this difficult weekend on and off the track, we managed the situation, we kept calm, we kept focused, and I want to thank all of the team because it is not easy."