Alvaro Bautista 'sacrificed' by Ducati: he's struggling, but he still has fire in his belly

A tough weekend at Magny-Cours, but the Spaniard finished on a high with a solid comeback: future still uncertain, and an old Ducati decision weighs on it.

Alvaro Bautista never gives up. In Race 1 he crashed on lap three after the restart, while running tenth behind the Gerloff-Bassani duo, but he wanted to get back on the bike and finished fourteenth (last of the classified). A disappointing Superpole Race (P15), but in Race 2 came the reaction of the two-time Superbike world champion: starting from the fourteenth spot on the grid, he staged a comeback that saw him finish sixth.

He will turn 42 in November, and the desire to race is still strong. As is known, the possibility of not seeing him on the SBK grid in 2027 is real: it seems the Barni Spark Racing Team is inclined to assign his Ducati Panigale V4 R to Xavi Vierge, who at Pata Maxus Yamaha will be replaced by Jack Miller.

In Race 2 he achieved the maximum possible, while in the other two heats he was somewhat hampered by issues that prevented him from showing his full potential: "On Saturday - he told the official WorldSBK website - I had the pace to fight for seventh-eighth place. After the red flag I had a problem and crashed. In the Superpole Race I had some issues with the SCQ tire under braking, otherwise I think I could have fought for eighth-ninth place."

In Race 2 things were more straightforward, he got a good start and made several overtakes that allowed him to secure the best possible result in this ninth round of the 2026 Superbike calendar: "Sixth place isn’t bad - Bautista comments - but it’s not the position I want to fight for. Right now this is the situation: I can’t find a good feeling with the bike and I can’t find anything that helps me push more, so I’m struggling. More than enjoying myself, I’m suffering on the bike."

The Barni Spark Racing Team rider reiterated his strong determination to race, to not give up even after a crash like the one in Race 2: "After a tough season, injuries, so many races, the titles, why get back on the bike and finish the race? The day I feel I don’t want to finish a race or don’t want to give my best, I’ll stay home. It’s not about motivation, it’s about the feeling I have. It’s a shame, I feel I could do better, but right now I don’t have the confidence with the bike to manage it. I never give up and I fight for the maximum in every circumstance." His fighting spirit is intact.

For the two-time Superbike champion a major limitation remains the 6–7 kg of ballast that must be fitted to his Panigale due to the minimum weight rule introduced in 2024. Even Ducati itself, with whom he had just won two titles, voted in favor and thus “condemned” its champion to no longer be as competitive as before. Perhaps the problems Bautista would have with that extra weight were underestimated and he was sacrificed to obtain something else in return.

Alvaro himself spoke about it at Magny-Cours: "Ducati chose to have a more competitive bike - reports Speedweek - and accepted that a rider would be penalized because of the weight. If Ducati hadn’t accepted it, the weight rule wouldn’t exist. But they accepted it, because then they received other things they had requested. Maybe it’s time to abolish the weight rule and penalize all Ducati riders: even if they did, Ducati would win."

Bautista has long been pushing for a rule change, and had found consensus among colleagues, but the WorldSBK leadership and the manufacturers (not all of them, at least) don’t seem inclined to accommodate him. In 2027 the situation won’t change and today it seems likely we won’t see the Spaniard on the grid of the production-based series championship.

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