Alvaro Bautista believes he can challenge for the 2026 World Superbike Championship with the Barni Spark Racing Team.

At the end of the 2025 World Superbike season, Alvaro Bautista and the Aruba.it Racing - Ducati squad parted ways after winning two titles together in the past four years.

The Spaniard will remain with Ducati in 2026, but he will ride for the Barni Spark Racing Team and will replace Danilo Petrucci, who will ride for BMW next season.

Next season, Ducati will bring the new version of the Panigale V4 R, which Bautista believes he can deliver good results with for the satellite Ducati squad.

"It will be a big challenge, because I will change team, but I will stay in the Ducati family, which was important for me," Bautista told WorldSBK.com at EICMA.

"I knew with the new model [2026] will be an important year for Ducati, and I want to be involved in the new development of this bike.

"Also, to be in the Barni Team is a really good step for them. They are a team that is growing up a lot; they have already won some races, and in 2025, they fought for third place in the Championship.

"It is a really competitive team, and I am sure that together we can achieve really good results. I am really motivated because it is a new challenge, I will work with new people inside the team, so I will find a new way to work.

"At the moment, I am so excited for this move, and let's see how it will go."

'Why can I not win a title with Barni?'

After falling short in the World Superbike title race for the last two seasons, Bautista still has his sights set on a third Championship in the 2026 season.

Despite riding for a satellite team, the 40-year-old believes he can replicate what Jorge Martin did in the 2024 MotoGP World Championship and win the title with a satellite team.

"The first thing I thought after signing with Barni, and having all the support from Ducati, I thought about [Jorge] Martin winning in MotoGP, which is even harder," he stated.

"Why can I not win a title with Barni? I always say everything happens for a reason. Maybe I have to move teams, and if I win the title, it will be even more important with an independent team.

"Let's see, because at the moment there is a lot of work to do, and the new bike has a lot of work ahead of it in the project. For sure, one point of the motivation is to win races and to fight for the title with Barni."