Bautista leads Toprak Razgatlioglu ꦛby 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 races compared to Razgatl👍ioglu’s s☂ix victories.

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But the reigning world champion has faltered recently, with Imola, Magny-Cours and Aragon seeing him ꩵmake 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 stilཧl seen his advantage slip from 98 to 47 points over the last four rounds.

With 62 points available i🥂n one round, Bautista needs to outscore Razgatlioglu by 15 poi🦋nts or more in Portimao. 

The Spaඣniard will be the hot favourite in the two feature-length races, given his con🍌sistent speed and ability to make the rear tyre last for a full race distance.

It’s an area where Bauti✅sta 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 Razgatli🐎oglu before going on to win after Bautista crashed from the lead early on. 

If Razgatlioglu 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 standings as Rea, who is 53 points ahead of Andrea Locatell♒i 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 clear of Danilo Petrucci altho🍎ugh the former MotoGP rider can mathematically catch the Motocorsa Ducati rider.