With Redding moving to BMW, Alvaro Bautista will be taking Redding’s place at the Ducati works team. And is poised to become the newest member of the Ducati family.
The Spaniard first joined the grid in 2010, when he made his debut with Suzuki.
He spent two years with the Japanese manufacturer before moving to Aprilia for another two races. He then moved to Honda in 2019, where he currently rides.
What makes Bautista’s return to Ducati even more fitting is the fact that he had spent his rookie year in MotoGP aboard the then-new Ducati .
As a Ducati rider, Bautista has always excelled on Ducati machines.
So his decision to move back to the Italian superbike brand has the potential of paying off big time for Bautista.
The Spaniard’s speed, aggression, and smoothness made him a natural fit for Ducati and Bautista did his best.
With two podium finishes in the first seven races.
However, slow progressions in bike development left Bautista unsatisfied—Bautista finished 12th in the standings in 2020 and 2021.
Bautista 2022
Ducati announced that they would continue to work with Bautista until 2022 where he would officially be on their team.
While Michael Van der Mark and Scott Redding are already present in the BMW factory team from 2019. And onwards, respectively, little to no mention has been made regarding the fate of Sykes.
The 36-year-old British rider, who was once on the factory squad back in 2008 after being previously a part of Suzuki’s development team.
He was able to secure a spot as part of BMW’s satellite team during 2019. Under the condition that he could bring his bike.
However, Alvaro Bautista’s move to Ducati should shake things up by the end of 2022.
The former MotoGP rider is currently riding for HRC in the World Superbike Championship (WSBK).
In 2019 Bautista with Ducati had total 36 races took 24 podiums, 16 wins, 4 poles had 498 points and stood second. While with HRC in 2020 had total 24 races took 1 podium, 0 wins,0 pole and with 113th points he stood 9th.
It was only natural to move on from HRC and join his new family, weighing his options.
With Bautista’s impending exit from HRC Honda, the door is certainly open for a change in manufacturer standing.
However, the real question remains will anyone be able to stop Redding and Toprak Razgatlioglu?
via WSBK
