Ducati is preparing to introduce the new Panigale V4 R in the World Superbike Championship. Álvaro Bautista, one of the Aruba.it Ducati riders, doesn’t yet know when he will test the bike but already knows what he will do if he doesn’t like it.
Last July, the Spaniard had a first encounter with the 2025 Panigale V4 during the World Ducati Week, but he told GPOne.com that it’s quite different from the actual race version: ‘The bike at WDW was very different from the one that will undergo initial testing next year. Right now, I don’t know yet when I will get to test it’.
As for his future, Bautista is under contract until 2025, with the new bike set to debut in 2026. If he doesn’t like it, he admits he might leave—at least from Ducati:
– If I test it and like it, I will stay. If not, I will leave it for someone else. We will see. I’m curious to test it because the WDW version wasn’t in race configuration.