Chaz Davies returns to Aruba.it Ducati in WorldSBK rider coach role
Chaz Davies will remain a familiar figure in the WorldSBK paddock in 2022 after taking up a rider coaching role at his former Aruba.it Ducati team
Triple WorldSBK runner-up Chaz Davies will return to wearing Ducati scarlet this season after being hired to act as a rider coach for the team’s Superbike and WorldSSP competitors.
The Welshman is one of the most successful WorldSBK riders of all time having amassed 32 WorldSBK wins in a career spanning just under a decade before retiring at the end of the 2021 WorldSBK season owing to a series of injuries.
With the majority of those wins coming as a Ducati factory rider, though Davies departed the manufacturer on somewhat acrimonious terms at the end of the 2020 season when he was replaced by Michael Ruben Rinaldi, he is back in the fold for 2022.
Though originally linked with a similar role at BMW on the request of Scott Redding, Davies will instead work with former Ducati team-mates Alvaro Bautista and Rinaldi, plus its new signing Nicolo Beluga, who will front its burgeoning WorldSSP Ducati Panigale V2 effort.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to remain part of the racing world and especially with the Aruba.it - Ducati family, with whom I enjoyed the best years of my racing career.
“It will be an interesting perspective to see the action from ‘the other side of the fence’! I believe that with my seven years of experience as an official Ducati rider and knowledge of both the Ducati V2 and V4 bikes I am well equipped to contribute to the future success of the team.
“We have excellent riders for the 2022 WorldSBK and WorldSSP campaigns and I will give everything I can to maximise their potential. I want to thank Stefano Cecconi, Feel Racing and Ducati for this opportunity and can’t wait to get started!”
For many years considered the closest rival to Jonathan Rea during his dominant six-season spell at the top of the WorldSBK Championship, Davies finished runner-up to him in 2015, 2016 and 2018.
