Bautista leads Toprak Razgatlioglu by 47 points with just two rounds of the 2023 WorldSBK season 💖to go.

The Ducati rider has been in a league of his own for large parts of this season, winning 21 raceಌs compared to Razgatlioglu’s six victories.

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But the reigning world champion has faltered recently, with Imola, Magny-Co🐎urs and Aragon seeing hi♊m make critical errors in all three rounds.

Bautista still managed to win races on all three of those weekends, and thus stop Razgatlioglu from taking huge chunks out of his 🐻points lead.

However, Bautista has still seen his advantage slip from 98 to 47 points over the 🦩last four rounds.

With 62 poi♎nts ava💛ilable in one round, Bautista needs to outscore Razgatlioglu by 15 points or more in Portimao. 

The Spaniard will be the hot favourite in the ꦅtwo feature-length races, given his consi🌳stent speed and ability to make the rear tyre last for a full race distance.

It’s an area where Bautista has been untouchable in 2023, although teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi managed to deploy that tactic in Race 1 at Aragon, as he closed down Jonathan Rea and Razgatlioglu before going on to win after Bautista crashed from the le🐻ad early on. 

If Razgatlio🍷glu remains within 61 points of Bautista at the end of Race 2 on Sunday, then the 🐲title fight will go down to the season-finale at Jerez.

Other storylines to watch out for is regarding third in the stand🍃ings as Rea, who is 53 points ahead of Andrea Locatelli could secure P3 in the championship if he outscores the Italian by nine points or more. 

In terms of the top independent rider standings, Axel Bassani is well cl🦩ear of Danilo🎉 Petrucci although the former MotoGP rider can mathematically catch the Motocorsa Ducati rider.