Ducati have not won a championship since Carlos Checa’s World Championship success in the 2011 WSBK season: can Alvaro Bautista end this drought?
Ducati has been waiting for a title in the World Superbike Championship since Carlos Checa’s World Championship success in the 2011 season. Never before has the series’ most successful manufacturer had to wait so long for a title. Since the switch from the 1098R/1198R to the 1199 Panigale R and later to the Panigale V4R, Ducati has had to fall in line behind the competition year after year. The dry spell could come to an end this year, with Alvaro Bautista leading the riders’ standings after a third of the season.
Carlos Checa doesn’t begrudge his compatriot the good results: “I’m happy about his success and I don’t want to compare it to my time. Back then everything was completely different. I rode a completely different bike. I started for a private team with the support of Ducati.”
With the Althea Ducati, Carlos Checa beat Marco Melandri (Yamaha), Max Biaggi (Aprilia), Eugene Laverty (Yamaha) and Leon Haslam (BMW) eleven years ago. At the end of the season, the new world champion had 110 points more on his account than his first rival.
Tough years for the twin-cylinder bikes in the World Superbike Championship
The twin-cylinder bikes were then curbed by the regulations. Ducati was unable to repeat the successes of past years with the fundamentally new V2 Panigale. “It’s strange that for eleven years no other rider has achieved that,” Checa marvels in conversation with ‘WorldSBK.com’ about Ducati’s thirst for success in the World Superbike Championship.
“But there have been technical decisions, decisions from the team – if it doesn’t all go right then it’s not possible to have the success Ducati are used to,” knows the former World Superbike Champion.
Strong Bautista comeback doesn’t surprise Checa
When Ducati switched from the V2 engine to the V4 concept for the 2019 season, it looked at the start as if the Italians would clearly dominate the World Superbike Championship. Alvaro Bautista won the first eleven races as a WSBK debutant and extended his lead from race to race.
Crashes in Jerez, Misano, Donington and Laguna Seca set Bautista back and cost him the World Championship title. Successor Scott Redding missed the big target in the following years. Ducati made the decision to bring Bautista back. In doing so, the Italians proved to have a good nose, if you look at the world championship standings.
Would Carlos Checa have expected Alvaro Bautista to find his 2019 form after two unsuccessful years with Honda? “When a rider has been as fast on a particular bike as Bautista has been in the 2019 season, it is likely that he will be fast again when he is back on that bike. Alvaro harmonises very well with the bike,” commented Checa.
“He seems very confident and can push the Panigale to its limit. The other riders can’t do that. I think that threw both Jonathan and Toprak off course a bit. They knew that Alvaro would be strong. But probably they didn’t anticipate that he would be so strong. I also think that the bike is better than in the first year with Alvaro,” analyses the last Ducati World Champion so far.
