He thinks that Alvaro Bautista’s continued success with Ducati in the 2026 World SBK season is necessary, if he’s competing to compete for next year’s victory.
The Spanish rider remains the Italian brand that he has won 63 races around the world, but is on the satellite Barnis Park team.
The two-time World Superbike Champion said the move to Barni was to balance out various aspects of the race and helped him reach an agreement with both Barni and Ducati by Gigi Draniya, general manager of Ducati Corse.
“I knew it was necessary to go fast and at least to ensure we could compete for a good outcome, and the target was to stay at Ducati,” Alvaro Bautista told worldsbk.com.
“The option was certainly to stay at Barni, but in the last few weeks there have also been opportunities and opportunities to stay with this team, but you have to balance everything.
“But what was clear was to race with Ducati.
“I also talked a lot with Gigi (Dorgnaina), and I told him, “I want to race with Ducati, so it’s because I feel I can show all my possibilities and use all my possibilities.”
“He agreed and he supported me from day one, so that was important and we got it.”
Bautista added that it is important for him to receive technical support from Ducati on the Italian satellite team.
“It’s true that for him (Marco Barnabo, owner of the Barni Racing Team), having a top rider in the category was not easy, and his target was to get the opportunity to give me the best thing to fight,” he said.
“It’s certainly not easy for such a team, but we’ve talked a lot with Ducati. Finally, we’ve arrived at a really good compromise as we have all the support from Ducati next year.
“This was very important, and in the end, I don’t want to continue racing just for the sake of the race. If I want to continue racing, I feel I can fight for the win.
“Also, on the other side, there are good economic offers, so I think I finally found a good compromise. I’m really happy with the new challenge.”
Bautista managed to get his first taste of 2026 in his recent tests at Aragon with the updated Panigal V4 R. Although I argued that it was not a test of performance, it was important to give early feedback on two different configurations of the bike.
“It was our ‘first date’ and it wasn’t too bad,” he said.
“But it wasn’t a real performance test. It was just a test to compare a lot of items that Ducati had to compare before deciding which bike to use. So there were two bikes and we started comparing Ducati items.
“It wasn’t something like a performance test, it was just about taking the first time (time to sit on the bike) and giving Ducati information.
“So I think it was important because we’ve tried a lot and know my direction for the bike next year.”