Reigning World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista will test a current-specification Ducati MotoGP machine in a private test next week at the Misano Circuit in Italy.
Bautista – who competes in the WSBK series with Ducati’s factory outfit on a Panigale VR 4 – has been granted a test of one of the Italian manufacturers Desmosedici premier class challengers as a prize for securing Ducati’s first WSBK riders title since Carlos Checa’s 2011 success last year, the Spaniard set to take the reigns over a two-day test at the Misano World Circuit across the 20th and 21st June.
A potential for a wild-card ride for Bautista – who made a sole premier class start with Ducati’s factory operation as a stand-in for an injured Jorge Lorenzo at the Australian Grand Prix in 2018 – hasn’t yet been communicated, the three-time MotoGP rostrum finisher admitting in an interview with WSBK last month that he only wanted to test the bike because “it seems like a really fun bike.”
“After I won the World Championship in WorldSBK, I asked Ducati to have a test with the MotoGP™ bike because, from the outside, it seems like a really fun bike,” said Bautista.
“We will do the test very soon. I don’t do the test with an intention to do a wildcard. I’d like to do the test and let’s see what happens. I don’t think there’s a lot of chance to repeat what Troy Bayliss did in 2006.
“It was another time and it was different. At the moment, in my mind, it’s only the World Superbike Championship. I just take the test like a prize and don’t think about Troy Bayliss.”
Bautista enjoyed a long career in MotoGP throughout the 2010’s having competed for no less than four manufacturers, with two year spells with the Suzuki and Aprilia factory operations being sandwiched by a long stint with the Gresini Honda team and Angel Nieto Ducati prior to joining WSBK.
He managed a best championship result of fifth in 2012 in his first year with the Gresini team, a campaign in which he finished outside the top ten only once and scored a pair of third-place podium runs in the San Marino and Japanese GP’s.
