Team Aspar have renewed their contract with Ducati for the 2018 MotoGP season and will have the option to run a brace of Desmosedici GP17s.

The 2018 season will be the fifth year of collaboration between the Aspar Team and the Borgo Panigale factory. The Valencian outfit moved up to the premier class with Ducati in 2010 and their initial association lasted two seasons.

It resumed in 2016, affording the Aspar Team its best result so far in MotoGP, with fourth place at the Grand Prix of Argentina. So far this year Álvaro Bautista established himself as one of the standout Independent riders during preseason and he also finished fourth in Argentina, where Karel Abraham qualified second on the grid.  

“For the Aspar Team it is excellent news that we will continue for another season with Ducati, as much for the professional relationship we have with Luigi dall’Igna and all his staff as for the material they provide,” said team principal Jorge ‘Aspar’ Martinez.

“We believe that we can still grow more but first of all I hope to be able to give Ducati and our sponsors plenty to celebrate this season, because we have two riders who are proving to be very competitive.

“We are satisfied with the progress of both Álvaro Bautista and Karel Abraham in this early part of the season but we have to put a whole weekend together because they both have the potential to be up there at the front. I hope 2017 can be a great year and 2018 even better.”