A charge to eighth-place in the opening Supersport World Championship (WorldSSP) encounter was a highlight of Oli Bayliss weekend at Mandalika, with the Ducati rider indicating the progress made with the D34G Racing team is going in the right direction.

A challenging qualifying session on Saturday morning saw Bayliss start both races from the fifth row of the grid, slicing his way through the field as race one progressed to ultimately reach P8.

“I really struggled for a good feeling in qualifying this morning, which saw us starting from 15th on the grid after recording a 1min37.579,” Bayliss explained. “So, to come home in eighth place and score some points is not so bad. I’m happy with how the race went today as the team found a good feeling with the D34G Racing Ducati Panigale V2, which is a credit to them.”

Bayliss concluded the weekend with a 12th-place finish in race two after being impacted by a mechanical hindrance. Nonetheless, Bayliss was able to bank more points from the weekend and now sits 13th in the 2023 Supersport World Championship standings.

“Bit of a weird day today [race two],” he added. “In warm up we went out with the old tyres and didn’t really make any progress, so in race two we decided to go another step in the direction that we went in race one and we were a lot more consistent, but missed the initial place.

“I had a problem on the second lap with a fairing coming loose and interfering with my gear shifter for the rest of the race, which was a shame. In the end we came home in 12th place. The main thing is the D34G Racing team and I are starting to go in the right direction and making some progress which is very positive.”