Alvaro Bautista jibes Scott Redding for not matching his Ducati WorldSBK results

Alvaro Bautista has aimed a sly dig towards Scott Redding after saying he expected better results from the rider he will replace in the Aruba.it Ducati team for the 2022 WorldSBK Championship.

Ex-MotoGP rider Bautista returns to the Ducati factory fold three years after bursting into WorldSBK with a record-breaking streak of 11 victories out of the box on the newly-introduced Panigale V4 R.

However, after a series of mistakes mid-season allowed the more consistent Jonathan Rea to overhaul and surpass the Spaniard’s eventual 16 wins over the course of the year, Bautista defected to Honda for two disappointing seasons that yielded just three podiums.

Replaced by another former MotoGP rider in Redding as a reward for his romp to the British Superbike Championship, the Briton mounted an outside title challenge in both 2020 and 2021, finishing runner-up and third respectively.

Despite scoring 12 wins and 37 podiums in that time, Redding was levered out of Ducati at the conclusion of the season in favour of the returning Bautista.

While Bautista has developed a reputation for crashing - inauspiciously topping the tables in 2021 - he gave an honest appraisal of his successor’s results on the bike, saying his experience in BSB should have at least seen him matching his former MotoGP counterpart.

"When I came to Ducati in 2019, it was a new project, it was the first season with this bike," Bautista told Speedweek. “It was also my first season in a new championship, with different tyres and tracks. 

“I assumed that my successors would get at least the same results as me. However, it looks like they stumbled more than they expected. But I also have to say that I had a very good season back then. Improving such results is difficult. 

“Redding had a year's experience on this bike from the British Championship – he came into the World Championship with more experience than I had. So he had better conditions to achieve at least my results. The bike was also better after a year of development.

“ I haven't given much thought to what the drivers mentioned have achieved. It was probably more the people at Ducati than me who expected better results. But the reality is that it's not easy to win in the Superbike World Championship."