"Hearing whispers" that could rock WorldSBK rider market

Amid speculation that his time at Ducati will come to an end at the end of 2025, fresh rumours place Alvaro Bautista back at a manufacturer he has previous experience with for 2026.

The two-time World Superbike Champion will be 41-years-old at the beginning of next season, but apparently would be keen to continue racing even without a contract from the Bologna factory.

According to the Italian publication GPOne, Alvaro Bautista is preparing a return to Honda for next season, where he previously raced in WorldSBK in 2020 and 2021.

Bautista’s best result on the CBR1000RR-R in those two seasons was third place, achieved on three occasions (2020 Aragon Race 2, 2021 Barcelona Superpole Race, 2021 Jerez Race 2).

Both Bautista and his then-teammate Leon Haslam left the factory Honda team at the end of 2021, replaced by the young Spanish duo of former grand prix riders: Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.

Both riders remain at HRC this year, each in the second year of their second two-year contracts at the Japanese factory’s official WorldSBK team, where progress has been slow since the new-generation Fireblade was introduced in 2020, but where the pace of that progress has seemingly picked up in the past year.

From struggling to be in the top-10 for much of the 2024 season, both factory Honda riders are now regularly contending for top-sixes.

Adding to Honda’s attractiveness to Bautista for next year is that their performance in 2025 is likely to grant them Superconcession status for 2026.

Whether the injection of Bautista to the project would be enough to bring Honda back to the pinnacle of WorldSBK is impossible to tell at the moment, but it is notable that it remains the Spaniard who has been HRC’s best performer on this generation of Fireblade.

The move to capture Bautista by HRC would serve as an answer to its question of finding a top-rated rider for its factory World Superbike project, having been unable to secure the services of Toprak Razgatlioglu, who instead chose to move to MotoGP in 2026 with the Pramac Yamaha team.

WorldSBK Paddock Show host Michael Hill also posted to social media saying that he has been “hearing rumours that Toprak [Razgatlioglu] isn’t the only rider in WorldSBK returning to pastures of old in terms of former manufacturer,” possibly a further indication of the potential for Bautista to reunite with Honda.