After winning the WorldSBK Championship for Ducati last year Alvaro Bautista has been gifted the opportunity to test the Ducati MotoGP bike.
So far this season the reigning World Superbike Champion has been dominating the WorldSBK class once again. Bautista has won 11 races from the 12 races that he has taken part in so far this season and has a points lead of 69 points over Toprak Razgatlioglu.
The factory Ducati WorldSBK rider has recently done an interview with WorldSBK.com where he discussed all things from if being a light-weight rider is the reason he is able to win to his upcoming MotoGP test with Ducati.
Talking about his upcoming test, Alvaro Bautista told WorldSBK.com: "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. 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."
When it was announced that Bautista would test the latest Ducati MotoGP bike the Ducati management did not rule out the idea of the Spaniard doing a wildcard later in the season. However, it appears that Bautista never thought that was part of the plan and does not intend on doing one until at least after the World Superbike season ends.
Bautista has not ridden a MotoGP machine since he left the class at the end of the 2018 season. When he departed MotoGP Bautista was riding a Ducati machine in the Angel Nieto Team. He has also ridden for the Factory Ducati MotoGP Team before when replacing the injured Jorge Lorenzo.
It is clear that the 38-year-old does not believe that he could do what Troy Bayliss did in 2006, when he wildcarded in Valencia and won the final race of the season. But it would be interesting to see how Bautista would do on a MotoGP bike now.
