Superbike World Champion Alvaro Bautista gets a MotoGP guest start in Malaysia on a Desmosedici GP23
from Ducati as thanks for 2022 WSBK title.
Alvaro Bautista makes a one-off race comeback in the MotoGP World Championship. Five years after the Spaniard retired from the premier class of the motorbike world championship to move to the World Superbike Championship (WSBK), he completes a wildcard entry for Ducati. At this year’s Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang (10-12 November) he will sit on an additional (ninth) Ducati.
The MotoGP wildcard entry of current World Superbike Champion Bautista had already been on the cards. Now it has been officially confirmed by Ducati. In November 2018, Bautista contested the penultimate race of his full-time MotoGP career at Sepang on a Ducati from then-satellite team Aspar. Following the then season finale (Valencia), he moved to the World Superbike Championship for the 2019 season.
This November at Sepang, the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 ridden by Bautista will feature the sponsorship logos of Aruba.it. This is the main sponsor of Ducati’s WSBK programme.
The design was already on display during two private MotoGP tests that Bautista completed at Misano a few weeks ago. On the 2023 MotoGP calendar, Sepang is the third last stop of the season. At that point, the rescheduled finale in the 2023 WSBK calendar will then be two weeks away.
“I am very happy to be able to compete at Sepang with a MotoGP wildcard. It’s a track that I like a lot. I’m happy to race there again, as it’s not on the WSBK calendar,” says Bautista, who clarifies, however: “This MotoGP race will be a bonus for me, not a priority.”
Bautista’s participation in the MotoGP weekend in Malaysia is Ducati’s reward for winning the title in the 2022 WSBK season, where he also leads the overall standings in the current 2023 season, and where Bautista will also compete for Ducati in 2024. Who will be his teammate in the coming season, however, is currently still open.
