The World Superbikes Championship is poised to return to action this weekend for Round 4 of the 2024 season at the iconic Misano circuit in Italy.

Nearly two months have passed since Round 3 at Assen which saw Nicholas Spinelli take a remarkable debut win in Race 1, before Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu shared the spoils in the Superpole Race and Race 2 respectively.

Heading to Misano this weekend, Aruba.it Racing – Ducati rider Bautista enjoys a slender six points margin over ROKiT BMW Motorrad’s Razgatlioglu in the Championship standings, 123 points to 117 points.

The reigning champion finished fourth on the combined timesheets during the official Misano test last month and was happy with the work accomplished by both him and the team ahead of this weekend’s action and the rest of the campaign.

“We tried some electronics solutions focusing on engine delivery,” he said.

“Up to this point we had dedicated ourselves almost exclusively to the set up and having had the opportunity to work on this aspect was important not only ahead of the Misano round but also for the rest of the season.”

Bautista’s sensational rookie team-mate Nicolo Bulega, a race winner at Misano during his World Supersport days, moves into his home event third in the standings on 109 points and did well to finish the test a combined second.

Razgatlioglu meanwhile, a surprise title contender on a revitalised BMW, finished the Misano test on top and will undoubtedly be the man to beat heading into the race weekend.

“In general, it looks like we are ready to race,” the Turkish rider told WorldSBK after the Misano test. “I hope we win all three races. This is my dream with BMW!”

Fourth in the standings with 93 points and a race winner at the opening round of the season is Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes, who is doing a fine job of leading the Japanese marque in light of Jonathan Rea’s departure to Yamaha.

Lowes was positive after the Misano test and said “We are improving all the time.”

That sentiment was echoed by his crew chief Pere Riba, who added “We collected very good information [at Misano] and it seems like we made a step. The direction of where we want to go is clearer.” 

Another rider who will be hoping to make a step is six-time champion Rea, who has been trying his damndest to adapt to the Yamaha R1 across the first three rounds of this year’s campaign.

Rea was second fastest on the final day of the Misano test and heads into this weekend feeling his best on the Yamaha machine.

“I enjoyed the R1 this test, we arrived with some different set-up ideas than my “base bike” over the first races and I was able to ride in a more familiar style, just trying to get the Yamaha R1 to compliment me and for me to adapt subtly to the bike,” Rea said.

“It is possibly the best I have felt with the Yamaha R1 and my team, but there’s still a lot of margin to find so I have a positive outlook.”

A confident Rea is an exciting prospect indeed and if he can carry his newfound form on the Pata Prometeon Yamaha R1 into this weekend, fans could be treated to another instalment in the Bautista, Razgatlioglu, Rea saga.

Still, championship contenders and Superbikes legends aside, there are plenty of other narratives to keep an eye on at Misano this weekend.

Not only will Bautista and Bulega be looking to impress on the factory Ducatis, but impressive rookies Andrea Iannone and Sam Lowes will be hoping to shine aboard their respective Team GoEleven and MarcVDS Panigales.

Moreover, Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli will be looking to continue his impressive season in front of his home crowd and Kawasaki’s Axel Bassani will be aiming to kickstart his campaign proper this weekend.

Aruba.it Racing – Ducati has another sting in its bow this weekend also, in the form of renowned test rider Michele Pirro getting a wildcard appearance.

Pirro is not only one of the world’s best test riders but an accomplished racer and he could very well be in the fight for what will be his first World Superbikes appearance in five years.

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Reigning World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista will take part in a wild-card MotoGP outing for the factory squad in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang in November.

The Spaniard – who is also currently leading the 2023 WSBK standings for the factory Ducati outfit – recently completed a couple of tests on the Italian marque’s premier class machine at Misano as a reward for his 2022 WSBK crown, his performance across both convincing Ducati that it should field Bautista in a one-off MotoGP encounter.

The Malaysian GP has been selected as it’s the first MotoGP event that takes place following the conclusion of the WSBK season, set for the 28^th/29^th October weekend at Jerez – two weeks before the contest at the Sepang International Circuit.

“I’m really happy to be able to race in MotoGP as a wildcard at Sepang, a track that I really like and that I’m happy to be back at since it’s not on the WorldSBK calendar,” said Bautista on his unexpected opportunity to return to the premier class in Malaysia.  

“The tests with the Ducati Desmosedici GP gave positive feedback: the feeling was good, and I had fun.

“I want to sincerely thank Ducati and Aruba.it because, without them, it would have been impossible to have this opportunity.”

The Malaysian GP will be Bautista’s first MotoGP outing since the end of his final full campaign in the series back in 2018, when he competed with then-satellite Ducati team Aspar – the three-time premier class rostrum finisher making a brief switch to the factory squad that year at the Australian GP to replace an injured Jorge Lorenzo, in which he finished an impressive fourth.

His Malaysian cameo marks the third and final event of the year Ducati will enter its Aruba.it-backed wild-carding Desmosedici, with test rider Michele Pirro having already run his first at Mugello in Italy, while the Italian’s second and final outing of the year will come in September’s San Marino GP at Misano.  

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Reigning World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista will test a current-specification Ducati MotoGP machine in a private test next week at the Misano Circuit in Italy.

Bautista – who competes in the WSBK series with Ducati’s factory outfit on a Panigale VR 4 – has been granted a test of one of the Italian manufacturers Desmosedici premier class challengers as a prize for securing Ducati’s first WSBK riders title since Carlos Checa’s 2011 success last year, the Spaniard set to take the reigns over a two-day test at the Misano World Circuit across the 20^th and 21^st June.

A potential for a wild-card ride for Bautista – who made a sole premier class start with Ducati’s factory operation as a stand-in for an injured Jorge Lorenzo at the Australian Grand Prix in 2018 – hasn’t yet been communicated, the three-time MotoGP rostrum finisher admitting in an interview with WSBK last month that he only wanted to test the bike because “it seems like a really fun bike.”

“After I won the World Championship in WorldSBK, I asked Ducati to have a test with the MotoGP bike because, from the outside, it seems like a really fun bike,” said Bautista.

“We will do the test very soon. I don’t do the test with an intention to do a wildcard. I’d like to do the test and let’s see what happens. I don’t think there’s a lot of chance to repeat what Troy Bayliss did in 2006.

“It was another time and it was different. At the moment, in my mind, it’s only the World Superbike Championship. I just take the test like a prize and don’t think about Troy Bayliss.”

Bautista enjoyed a long career in MotoGP throughout the 2010’s having competed for no less than four manufacturers, with two year spells with the Suzuki and Aprilia factory operations being sandwiched by a long stint with the Gresini Honda team and Angel Nieto Ducati prior to joining WSBK.

He managed a best championship result of fifth in 2012 in his first year with the Gresini team, a campaign in which he finished outside the top ten only once and scored a pair of third-place podium runs in the San Marino and Japanese GP’s.

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