Alvaro Bautista, a new start with the Barni team: "I know I'll have to fight

The Spanish rider is starting over with the Barni team and hopes to enjoy a satisfying 2026 SBK season: will he be competitive at Phillip Island?

2019 Superbike World Championship, opening round in Australia: Alvaro Bautista and the Ducati Panigale V4 R debut in the class with three wins. Seven years later, the Spaniard is a 41-year-old two-time SBK world champion about to contest his first season with an independent team, Barni Spark, and with a new version of the Bologna-built bike. Despite a 6–7 kilogram ballast he must carry due to the minimum weight rule, he has decided not to end his career and will try to give his best from the very first round of 2026 at Phillip Island, where earlier this week he finished the test in eleventh place on the timesheets. But race weekends are another story.

After the years spent with the factory Aruba Ducati team, the two-time Superbike world champion is highly charged for the adventure with the Barni Spark Racing Team: "It will be a new challenge for me. I have a lot of motivation, because physically and mentally I feel good. I can’t wait to get started. Unfortunately, in the winter we weren’t able to test much. It would have been important for us, given that we have a new bike and I’m working with a new team: there’s a lot to do. Anyway, I’m happy, this opportunity is a new beginning for my career and I want to give my best."

The Phillip Island circuit is unique, and having had a fully dry test only in Australia isn’t ideal for the rest of the season: "This track is a bit tricky," Bautista explains, "and many things you try here don’t work elsewhere. Especially on the second day we tested things to try to adapt the bike to me. Several didn’t work, others did: now we’re looking for my path with this Panigale V4 R. At the moment, I don’t feel I can express the bike’s full potential, but we’re working on it and I hope that over the weekend we’ll improve my feeling."

He hasn’t set a result he wants to achieve in the first Superbike round at Phillip Island or for the rest of the season: "I don’t think I’ll be able to reach my maximum level this weekend," the Spaniard says, "because we need more references and more time. I don’t have any expectations in terms of results; we have to stay focused on performance and improve it. Even this year I’m not putting any specific result in my head, I just want to have fun and give my best. I feel strong physically and mentally, I think we have everything needed to achieve good results this season."

With Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea gone, Bautista is the only SBK world champion on the grid: "I don’t feel that kind of responsibility," he replies. "I’ve won two titles, but that’s the past; now we’re in the present and we have to write the future. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, but now I’m in a different situation. Everything is new and I have to fight to win. Having been a world champion in the past doesn’t guarantee good results; you have to work and fight. That’s what I want to do."