“We’ll be working with only one aim in mind: to win.” Those are the words of Gigi Dall’Igna while talking about Ducati Corse’s WorldSBK program, which made its public debut today.

Officially the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike team, the rider duo of Chaz Davies and Alvaro Bautista have a lot of weight on their shoulders. After all, the Italian marque made an historic switch from a v-twin to a V4 all in the name of winning the World Superbike Championship title.

Usually though, the expectations for a team with a brand new bike are reserved, as it can take a season to extract the full potential of the machine on the race track, but with Ducati, it seems that the grading curve is a bit steeper.

Maybe it is the radical changes that the brand has made, or maybe it is the pressure of being the bridesmaid and never the bride for the past seven years. Whatever the case may be, we imagine there will be more than a few Ducatisti following this year’s championship to see how this new red bike performs.

The early indications are that the Ducati Panigale V4 R is potent out of the box, but no one on the team seems willing to make championship predictions…not yet at least.

“The project is still at an early stage and development has started auspiciously well, but we still have to perfect several details and we have a clearly defined development program,” continued Dall’Igna. “There is no question that we have a great pair of riders, so it’s up to us to allow them to express all their potential on track.”

Who will be the one to give Jonathan Rea and his Kawasaki a run for the WorldSBK title? Chaz Davies’ name comes to the top of the list, as this will be his fifth season with Ducati in WorldSBK, but don’t discount the chances of Alvaro Bautista.

The Spaniard has shown he is a quick study of the Ducati Panigale V4 R, and his worth in the MotoGP paddock was always seemingly undervalued. The dark horse pick for the 2019 World Superbike Championship, we expect to see Bautista upstaging his teammate, and perhaps the rest of the field, on more than one occasion this year.

This should make for a WorldSBK season well-worth watching, and we have only a few more weeks to wait and see how things lineup at Phillip Island, Australia.

Stay tuned, but until then drool over these high-resolution photos of the 2019 Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike team livery, winglets and all.

Source: Ducati Corse