British Superbike championship leader Shane Byrne is high on Xerox Ducati's shopping list to be Troy Bayliss' replacement in the factory World Superbike squad in 2009.
The Kent-based rider, who is currently embarassing allcomers in BSB, is a long way up Davide Tardozzi's extensive list of riders which also inlcudes Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden.
It is believed that Byrne has the full support of his team boss Colin Wright, and GSE Racing owner Darrell Healey. Even if it doesn't come off for Byrne, he might find himself in WSB anyway as GSE are still not happy about the BSB rule situation, which was made a mockery of at Snetterton this weekend.