Ducati Offers Miller Bautista’s 2025 Superbike Ride

With the 2025 MotoGP line-up confirmed after the renewal of Pecco Bagnaia and the arrival of Marc Marquez, Ducati is in no rush to close the deals in Superbike, where Nicolò Bulega and double world champion Alvaro Bautista currently race.

The Spaniard raised alarms about his consistency over the weekend in Most, where Toprak Razgatlioglu claimed another hat-trick. The Turk’s dominance is distancing the Spaniard from the fight for the 2024 title.

There, Bautista said openly for the first time this year that he wants to continue for another season with the Borgo Panigale team. “I want to continue. We are talking to Ducati about the renewal, I think it is not right to end my career like this. I need to go back to enjoying myself on the bike, to feel strong,” the Spaniard said after Race 2 in the Czech Republic.

Bautista’s manager sat down to talk with the Italian team’s managers, asking them for improvements to the contract. This request led the Bologna top brass to look for an alternative. Aruba.it Racing – Ducati has a budget of around one million euros for rider salaries, of which the Spaniard will receive around 750,000 euros this year, while Bulega will receive around 200,000 euros.

Only the official announcement is missing, but Bulega would have renewed his contract for 2025 with a substantial improvement in the figure, in response to the very good results of this year. It would thus reach 450,000 euros, this means that the budget for another driver would not exceed the same figure, far from the financial aspirations of the Spaniard.

Jack Miller, the alternative for the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team

According to Motorsport.com, the Ducati team has contacted Jack Miller to offer him the second bike in the SBK team. The Australian has already raced with the Borgo Panigale structure from 2018 to 2022: the first three years as a Pramac rider and the last two as an official standard-bearer, with which he has achieved three victories, the last in the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix.

Last year, Miller joined the official KTM team in MotoGP, where he will not continue in 2025 after losing his seat to Pedro Acosta. Without a seat in either the official team or the satellite team where Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales have preferred, Miller is still waiting for the market movements in MotoGP.

In addition to the open negotiations with Ducati, the Australian also has offers from other official Superbike teams, although he prefers to evaluate his options in the MotoGP paddock and has asked for time until the Austrian Grand Prix on August 18 to make a decision.

At the moment, the MotoGP grid only offers one place in the Pramac-Yamaha team, as the other seats have been “already booked”. So Miller, after 14 years in the World Championship (he debuted in 2011) and ten seasons in the premier class, in which he debuted jumping directly from Moto3 in 2015, could have to pack his bags for the SBK paddock.