Ducati, Alvaro Bautista celebrates his renewal
The words of Alvaro Bautista
The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship makes a stop at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the Catalunya Prosecco DOC Round. Before the start of this weekend comes the news that everyone was waiting for related to the future of Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati): the Spaniard will continue to be part of the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team in 2024.
He said at Assen that his future was unclear and that he had two choices for next year. Bautista and Ducati have opted to renew their bond for next season as well after getting off to a great start this 2023 with eight wins out of nine races and now they are about to experience the Catalunya Round that saw them score a hat trick last year. The rider from Talavera de la Reina wants to confirm his place at the top of the world in WorldSBK.
Bautista made a great debut in this Championship in 2019 with Ducati winning the first 11 races of the season although then a series of crashes did not allow him to crown his world dream as the title went to Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK). For 2020 and 2021 he switched to Team HRC.
In his experience with Honda riding the CBR1000RR-R, Bautista in two seasons took three podiums with a ninth place finish as his best result in the standings. In 2022 he returned to Ducati, winning immediately at Aragon and on all but two circuits, for a total of 16 wins and 31 podiums out of 36 races and bringing back to Borgo Panigale the world title that had been missing in WorldSBK since 2011. His defense of the world title riding the new model Panigale V4 R started well with eight wins out of nine races and a 56-point margin over Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK).
Bautista spoke about the contract valid for the 2024 season: £After 21 years spent in the elite of world motorcycling, between the paddocks of MotoGP and Superbike, I now feel in an excellent state of form, both physically and mentally. I can say that I am in the best moment of my career: I have a lot of fun riding the bike and I have the pleasure of working with a team that I consider a second family. By the way: on a personal level, my family is growing, the girls are getting bigger and bigger, and for this reason that to race also in 2024 was a choice I wanted to make together with them. We decided to continue and I am very happy to stay with the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team with whom I have always had a wonderful relationship. I am happy that they also still want me, even though I am a little old. One more year together, with the hope of keeping the fantastic feeling with the bike, the certainty of an extraordinary working relationship and, of course, the goal of continuing to get great results.”
