Could Alvaro Bautista follow fellow WorldSBK racer with next career move?

Alvaro Bautista’s future is still not officially confirmed, but his destination could be similar to that of a fellow WorldSBK race winner.

Bautista’s move to Barni Ducati for 2026 largely failed as the two-time WorldSBK champion was generally out-performed by his second-year team-mate Yari Montella and scored only one podium all year, that coming at the opening round back in February.

After that, results suffered, especially after a foot fracture sustained at Most. Only by the final two rounds in October was Bautista back to something close to the kind of form you might associate with someone with his record, crashing out of a podium position in Estoril before finishing fourth in Jerez.

Bautista was not the only rider to have his season derailed at the Czech Round this year; Danilo Petrucci also suffered significant injuries when he crashed in Race 1, after which he could not rediscover the form he had before the crash, which itself still left room for improvement.

Like Bautista, Petrucci’s team change for 2026 didn’t work out, his time with BMW’s WorldSBK squad coming to an end after only one season.

A move to MotoAmerica looks likely for Petrucci in 2027, the Italian set to return to the series that propelled him to WorldSBK back in 2022. 

And it now seems that there is a possibility that Bautista could join Petrucci in moving to the US series, as the Strack Racing Team that runs Mathew Scholtz is potentially set for a change of machinery from Yamaha to Ducati.

Italian publication GPOne reports that Bautista is the rider desired by the Strack team to ride its new Panigale V4 R in 2027, should negotiations with Ducati go to Strack’s plans.

Nothing is yet certain, but the arrival of Bautista and Petrucci at the same time would clearly be important for MotoAmerica, which has not had any major European names commit to the series since Petrucci left in 2023, while for Strack the signing of Bautista would single it out as a clear title threat in 2027.

MotoAmerica was one of the few series in which the new Ducati Panigale V4 R did not dominate in its first year. Yamaha won the championship with Bobby Fong, while PJ Jacobsen was the highest-placed Ducati rider in sixth in the standings. Cameron Beaubier also rode Ducati this year, but missed several rounds through injury and won only once.