Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista remains confident ahead of Czech WorldSBK despite seeing his championship lead cut to 17 points last time out.

Bautista shook off his first race crash of the season with a podium on Sunday at Donington Park - Ducati’s 999th in the series - to keep his title-challenge momentum firmly in check. While he has yet to navigate the Autodrom Most on the Panigale V4R, the newly restructured circuit will host some unknowns for his rivals too.

With the summer break approaching, the goal is both to improve his advantage in the standings and clinch the 1000th WorldSBK rostrum for red Bologna factory before another five weeks off.

"It will be the first time for me on this circuit with the Ducati Panigale V4R,” Bautista explained from Most. "For this reason, it will be very important to find soon the right direction in terms of setup and at the same time start working on different tyre solutions.

“However, there is great confidence in light of the good race we had on Sunday, after race one at Donington"