Alvaro Bautista finds “new way” for Ducati's 2025 WSBK bike

Alvaro Bautista on next season's updates on his Ducati

Updated: 13 Nov 2024

Ducati has launched a new Panigale V4 for 2025, but the bike won’t be homologated for racing until 2026.

As a result, the factory Ducati WorldSBK team — including its riders, Alvaro Bautista and Nicolo Bulega — is still trying to find gains in the current Panigale to try to reclaim the title from BMW and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

For Bautista, the ending of the 2024 season — in which he scored only one podium in the final six races — means he is looking for radical changes now, rather than waiting for the new bike in 2026, by which time his current Ducati contract will have expired.

“For sure, we look forward to the new Panigale with the two-sided swingarm, but it will arrive for 2026,” Bautista told WorldSBK.com at the recent EICMA motorcycle show.

“So, at the moment, for 2025 we will have the same bike — some updates about the electronics and engine, but no big change.

“But, for me, I think it will be interesting to see if the new way we are taking is good enough to be competitive again.”

Bautista’s “new way” with the Ducati began in the post-race Jerez test in October, where the Spanish rider requested “a completely different bike” to that he’d raced in 2024.

“For sure, the tests in Jerez were different to normal because after a really tough weekend in the Jerez round for us we decided to restart and to make something different,” Bautista explained.

“I asked Ducati to make a completely different bike, about the setup and electronics and everything, because I wanted to change the feeling with the bike.

“We won two titles with the same setup, the same feeling, and it worked really well; but in 2024 the rules were changed and the level was different, was higher, more riders fighting for victories.

“In the data, we saw a difference between the other Ducati riders and me. Before, I was the fastest Ducati rider, but last year I was not the fastest in all the tracks. So, at the end, I wanted to change the feeling with the bike, so we decided to restart from zero.

“It was good, because what I was looking for was a different feedback from the bike and I found it. At the moment, it’s like we started a new, different way, so let’s see in the future if it works or not, but at the moment I’m happy with the feeling I found in that test.”