Aruba becomes Ducati WSBK partner, title sponsor

Aruba has signed a three-year agreement as partner and title sponsor of the official Ducati World Superbike team.

Italy's leading web hosting and cloud services company will be directly involved in team management of the "Aruba.it Racing - Ducati Superbike Team".

Ducati Corse will continue to be responsible for the development and preparation of the Panigale R bikes to be raced under the revised 2015 WSBK regulations by Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano.

"It's with great pleasure that we can announce this important agreement with Aruba that guarantees a solid work platform for Ducati in the Superbike World Championship over the next three years," Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding, stated.

"While fully respecting our philosophy of using racing to test and continuously improve the product that we offer to our fans, the new 'Aruba.it Racing - Ducati Superbike Team' will be able to count on a profoundly evolved version of the Panigale in 2015, which will also be available to our fans and be even more powerful, lightweight and electronically cutting-edge.

"For Ducati, races have strategic importance, and the Superbike World Championship allows us to demonstrate, on track, just how high-performing and fast a twin-cylinder can be. With the new 2015 regulations, which stipulate that the bikes competing must be even closer to production models, we believe we have everything we need to be very competitive.

"With its 14 Riders' titles and 17 Manufacturers' titles, Ducati has an extraordinary history of successes and victories in the Superbike World Championship and, with this agreement, we think that we have laid the foundations from which to build on this unique record of achievement. I therefore wish Chaz and Davide lots of luck and extend a warm welcome to Aruba."

Serafino Foti has been confirmed as 2015 Team Manager, while Ernesto Marinelli will continue to be the Ducati Corse Superbike Project Director and Team Technical Director.

Ducati and Aruba have also decided to continue collaboration with Feel Racing, the technical and logistical structure that has long been linked to Ducati. Aruba will be responsible for organisational aspects of the team and also, together with Ducati, for team communication and marketing activities.

Aruba will be represented at the tracks by Luca Scassa. The 31-year old rider, who hails from Arezzo and has sixty Superbike races under his belt, will also be one of the team's official test riders.

Stefano Cecconi, CEO of Aruba, commented: "We are very proud of this partnership in which we have great faith, and that will allow us to manage, together with Ducati, an official team with two very competitive riders.

"We have taken the decision to enter the world of racing because it links in many ways to our world and shares some of the same fundamental pillars, such as the continuous quest for maximum performance and ever increasing reliability, and a constant focus on safety."

The new team will be officially presented to the press in early February, with a dedicated event at the Aruba Data Centre in Arezzo.

The 2015 WSBK season gets underway at Phillip Island, Australia on February 22.