Ducati has launched a new Panigale V4 for 2025, but the biღke won’t be homologated for racing until 2026. 

As a result, the factory Ducati WorldSBK team — including its riders, Alvaro Bautista and Nicolo Bulega — is still trying to find gains in the current Paniga💞le to try to recla🃏im the title from BMW and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

For Bautista, the ending of 🎐the 2024 season — in which he scored only one podium in the final six races — means he is looking for radical change🍸s now, rather than waiting for the new bike in 2026, by which time his current Ducati contract will have expired.

“For sure, we look forward to the new Panigale with the t🀅wo-sided swingarm, but it will arrive for 2026𝓰,” Bautista told WorldSBK.com at the recent EICMA motorcycle show.

“So, at the moment, for 2025 we 🀅will have the same bike — some updates about the electronics and engine, but no big change.

“But, for me, I think it will be interesting to see if💎 the new way we are taking is good enough to be competitive again.”

Bautista’s “new𒀰 way” with the Ducati began in the post-race Jerez test in October, where the Spanish rider requested “a completely different bike” to that he’d raced in 2024.

“For sure, the tests in Jerez were d🐎ifferent to normal because after a really tough weekend in the Jerez round for us we decided to restart and to make something different,” Bautista explained.

“I asked Ducati to make 🎉a completely different bike, about the setup and electronics and everything, because 🌃I wanted to change the feeling with the bike.

“We won two titles with the same setup, the same feeling, and it worked really wel꧂l; but in 2024 the rules were changed and the level was different, was higher, more riders fighting 𝓰for victories.

“In the data, we saw a difference between the other Ducati riders and me. Before, I was the fastest Ducati rider, but last year I was not the༒ fastest in all the tracks. So, at the end, I wanted to change the feeling with the bike, so we decided to restart from zero.

“It was good, because what I was looking for was a different feedback from the bike and I found it. At the moment, it’s like we started a new🌼, different way, so let’s see in the future if it works or not, but at th🍃e moment I’m happy with the feeling I found in that test.”