Alvaro Bautista made a confidence-boosting start to the penultimate round of the 2023 WorldSBK Championship at Portimao as he swept to a clear fastest time in Friday Practice.

The Spaniard - who can wrap up his second consecutive title if results fall his way this weekend - set a roaring 1m 40.476secs lap in the afternoon on the Aruba Ducati Panigale V4 R.

That put him a clear +0.3s ahead of second place Garrett Gerloff, who topped the morning FP1 session with a 1m 40.763secs lap that was good enough for him to end the day in second aboard the Bonovo Racing BMW M 1000 RR.

More crucially, Bautista was a full +0.7s clear of Toprak Razgatlioglu, the Turk now the only rider remaining who can deny the ex-MotoGP rider back-to-back titles, who could only manage ninth best.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi completed a strong day for Aruba Ducati with the third fastest lap, heading off Jonathan Rea in fourth and Remy Gardner in fifth, the GYTR GRT Yamaha man enjoying his strongest start to a race weekend this year.

Michael van der Mark consolidated BMW’s encouraging Friday with the sixth best time, ahead of Barni’s Danilo Petrucci, Andrea Locatelli on the best of the Pata Yamahas, Razgatlioglu and Dominique Aegerter rounding out the top ten.