Ducati Corse

Ducati Corse (Italian pronunciation: [duˈkaːti]) is the racing division of Ducati Motor Holding.
The company is split into four departments with 100+ employees working for the Ducati Corse, almost 10% of the Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. workforce.
Between 1998 and 2004 the racing division existed as a subsidiary company named Ducati Corse S.r.l., fully owned by Ducati Motor Holding.
Technical research and development is composed of two teams responsible for the design and development of the motorcycles that compete in the MotoGP and Superbike championships.
The sporting activities department is responsible for the factory teams that take part in the MotoGP class of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, the Superbike and Supersport, MotoE world championships, together with national championships.
The commercial activities department is responsible for providing private teams with motorcycles and spare parts.
It also provides consultancy services and technical assistance to Ducati privateers take part in the Superbike World Championship and in national Superbike championships.
The marketing and communication department's goal is to increase and manage the Ducati brand image in racing.
It is also responsible for Ducati Corse official merchandising line.
Ducati's history with motorsport began with speed records on Cucciolo motorized bicycle factory racers in 1951, followed in 1954 with bringing in Fabio Taglioni to found a road-racing program with the 100 Gran Sport.
When the MotoGP technical rules changed in the 2002 season, giving priority to machinery with four-stroke 990 cc engines, Ducati decided to return to MotoGP in 2003.
Troy Bayliss and Loris Capirossi competed in all rounds of the 2003 MotoGP championship.
Capirossi got a podium in the opening round of the championship in Japan and won the Catalan Grand Prix in Barcelona.
Capirossi finished fourth in the final championship standings and Bayliss sixth; Ducati finished second overall in the Manufacturers' standings.
A large part of the 2004 season went by before the bike became competitive, but the season concluded with both riders on the podium.
In the 2005 season, Bayliss was replaced by Spain's Carlos Checa with Ducati switching tyre suppliers to Bridgestone.
Capirossi took two wins at Twin Ring Motegi and Sepang, while Checa scored a brace of podium finishes.
Spanish rider Sete Gibernau replaced Checa for the 2006 season.
The team took its first win of 2006 in the opening round at Jerez, followed by a podium in Qatar.
Capirossi led the championship for a short while, but at the start of the Catalan Grand Prix in Barcelona, Capirossi's bike collided with Gibernau's. Both riders ended up injured and in hospital, with Gibernau sustaining a broken collar bone.
Capirossi struggled at the Dutch TT race a week later, while Gibernau was replaced by German Alex Hofmann for several rounds after undergoing additional surgery.
With Gibernau also sidelined for the final round of the season at Valencia, Ducati recalled Bayliss, who was recently crowned Superbike World champion.
Bayliss won the race, his first MotoGP victory, with Capirossi taking second place for the first Ducati 1–2 finish.
While, for the 2007 season, MotoGP reduced the allowed engine displacement, Ducati started development of its 800 cc motorcycle extremely early.
According to racing chief Filippo Preziosi, by August 2006, Ducati had already built twenty 800 cc engines with various specifications.
Loris Capirossi was joined in the team by Casey Stoner.
Ducati continued to be the fastest with a bike that was markedly quicker than its rivals as was displayed by Casey Stoner on tracks with long straights.
During the most part of the 2007 season, Stoner dominated the field, obtaining his and the team's first MotoGP World Championship at Twin Ring Motegi on September 23, 2007, four races before the end of the season.
At the end of season, Ducati's chief engineer Alan Jenkins was awarded the Sir Jackie Stewart Award for brilliance throughout the season.
Casey Stoner remained with the team and was partnered with Marco Melandri for 2008.
Melandri had a difficult time adapting to the GP-8's performance, and mutually agreed to shorten his two-year contract to one year midway through.
Casey Stoner remained with the team while Nicky Hayden became Stoner's new teammate, replacing Marco Melandri who moved to Kawasaki for 2009.
Known as the "Ducati Marlboro Team", Stoner and Hayden piloted the factory Carbon Fibre chassis Desmodesici GP9.
Halfway through the season, Finnish rookie Mika Kallio was competed for the team for 3 races, as Stoner was unavailable due to illness.
Once again Casey Stoner joined with Nicky Hayden for the 2010 season.
On 9 July 2010, Casey Stoner announced that he would join Honda for the 2011 season, after four years at Ducati.
On 15 August 2010, after the Brno race, Valentino Rossi confirmed he would be riding for Ducati, signing a two-year deal from 2011 partnering with Hayden.
Nicky Hayden remained with Ducati Corse, then-known as "Ducati Team" for 2013 on a one-year contract.
He was joined by Andrea Dovizioso who replaced a departing Rossi.
Dovizioso remained with Ducati for the 2014 season, joining by former team-mate Cal Crutchlow.
Dovizioso remained with Ducati for 2015 with Andrea Iannone coming to the factory team from a Pramac Ducati.
2015 awaited the highly anticipated GP15, a full redesign of the Desmosedici by new team race director Gigi Dall'Igna which debuted at the second Sepang test.
Dovizioso and Iannone remained as the factory team riders for 2016 with the GP16, cited as being an evolution of the GP15.
The most notable change within Ducati was the return of Casey Stoner who immediately gelled with the Ducati, alongside Michele Pirro.
In 2016, Ducati signed five time world champion and reigning MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo to pilot the Ducati for the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
They have also retained Dovizioso, for a further two seasons.
Once again Dovizioso joined with Lorenzo for the 2018 season.
After mainly poor results, Jorge Lorenzo's 2-year contract with Ducati ended with a move to Honda to join Marc Márquez, while Dovizioso remained.
Italian rider Danilo Petrucci joined Ducati from Alma Pramac Racing.
Dovizioso's last year with Ducati ended with a victory in Austria, while Danilo Petrucci won the 2020 French Grand Prix.
Ducati won the Constructors' MotoGP World Championship for the second time.
Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia moved to the team having rebranded as "Ducati Lenovo Team".
In the overall standings, Bagnaia secured second place, as Ducati won the Constructors' MotoGP World Championship for the third time.
Despite suffering five DNFs, four of which were individual errors throughout season, Bagnaia became the second MotoGP world champion for Ducati in Valencia.
Aside from Bagnaia's win, the Bolognese manufacturer also won the Constructors' Title, the Teams' Title in the same season.
Marc Márquez signs for Ducati to be alongside Bagnaia until 2026. Ducati scrapped ideas of using GP25 on 2025 season instead using upgraded GP24.9, they doing this for a 2025 and 2026 seasons homologation before regulations change to 850cc in 2027.
Ducati has been taking part in the Superbike World Championship since it began in 1988 until 2010, then came back for 2014, with the race organisation delivered by Bologna-based Feel Racing.
At the end of 2015, Ducati has more wins than any other manufacturer involved in the championship.
Using V-twin engines Ducati was able to dominate the championship for many years. Ducati won its first riders' championship in 1990 with Raymond Roche.
The 1991 title was won by Doug Polen riding for the customer team managed by Eraldo Ferracci. From 1994 to 1999 Carl Fogarty won the title 4 times on Ducatis.
Australian Troy Corser won the 1996 title on a factory-spec Ducati fielded by Austrian team Promotor Racing.
In 2001 Troy Bayliss won the first of his three titles.
In 2003, the rule changes in MotoGP allowing 4-stroke engines meant that the Japanese manufacturers had focused their resources there, leaving the Superbike World Championship with limited factory involvement.
Ducati Corse entered the only 2 Ducati 999s in the field, taking 20 wins from 24 races in a season where all races were won by Ducati.
Neil Hodgson won the title on a Factory Ducati, while the team finished the season with 600 points, a record point score by a constructor in a season. 2004 was a similar story, James Toseland winning the title although Ten Kate Honda's Chris Vermeulen prevented a Ducati clean-sweep.
2006 saw the return of Bayliss to the Superbike World Championship after 3 years in MotoGP. The combination of Bayliss and Ducati proved unstoppable and they dominated the season winning 12 races.
In 2007, Troy Bayliss finished fourth riding once again a Ducati 999. Even though production of the 999 ended in 2006 and the bike was replaced by the Ducati 1098, Ducati produced 150 limited edition 999s to satisfy homologation requirements.
For 2008, Ducati raced a homologated version of the 1098R. The FIM, the sanctioning body for the Superbike World Championship, raised the displacement limit for 2 cylinder engines to 1,200 cc. Bayliss won his third world championship and retired at the end of the 2008 season.
2009 saw Noriyuki Haga, who replaced Bayliss, partnered with Michel Fabrizio. Haga had a fantastic season on Ducati but lost the championship by 6 points; Haga ended the season as second while Fabrizio as third in overall championship standing.
Once again, 2010 began with Noriyuki Haga partnering with Michel Fabrizio for Ducati in SBK.
On 27 August 2010, it was announced that Ducati SBK will no longer compete with a factory team in 2011, after 23 seasons which had brought the marque a total of 29 riders' and manufacturers' championship titles, instead limiting their participation to privateer teams running their works bikes.
During 2011-12 Ducati gave factory support to Althea Racing privateer team, winning the 2011 title with Carlos Checa.
Having parted from Althea at the end of 2012, for 2013 Ducati supported Francis Batta's Alstare Racing team introducing the new 1199 Panigale R in the world championship.
On 15 November 2013, it was announced that Ducati would be returning as a factory team in SBK as Ducati Superbike Team.
For 2014 the returning factory team signed Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano.
Davies was runner-up in 2015, 2017 and 2018, and third in 2016. Teammate Marco Melandri finished 4th in 2017 and 5th in 2018. The Italian was replaced by Álvaro Bautista in 2019.
The Spaniard began the season with 11 consecutive wins, but later had mixed results.
From 2022, Ducati joined the Supersport World Championship with the 955 Panigale V2, ridden by Nicolò Bulega.
Bulega finished the championship fourth in 2022 and as winner in 2023.
New for 2024 is an official entry to the MotoE World Championship electrically powered race series with rider Chaz Davies, under the name Aruba Cloud MotoE team, having taken over he grid-slot previously used by Pramac. The series uses Ducati V21L machines.
In 2024, Ducati Corse with R&D - Maddii Racing Team makes its debut at the MXGP World Championship in the Netherlands with crossers Tony Cairoli who is a nine-time world champion and Alessandro Lupino.
In this year's MXGP championship, Cairoli and Lupino relied on the Ducati Desmo450 MX motorbike.
Ducati Corse riders has collected 106 MotoGP wins so far.
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
* Season still in progress.
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
* Season still in progress.
* Season still in progress.
* Season still in progress.
Ducati has also won the manufacturers' championship for years 2008–2009, 2011 and 2016.
Ducati has won the British Superbike Championship twelve times.
In the AMA Superbike Championship, Ducati has had its share of success, with Doug Polen winning the title in 1993 and Troy Corser the following year in 1994.
Ducati has entered a bike in every AMA Superbike season since 1986, but withdrew from the series after the 2006 season.
Ducati had an important place in early Superbike racing history in the United States and vice versa: In 1977, Cycle magazine editors Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling took a Ducati 750SS to first place at Daytona in the second-ever season of AMA Superbike racing.
says Richard Backus from Motorcycle Classics:
Ducati's first ever world title was the 1978 TT Formula 1 World Championship, achieved thanks to Mike Hailwood's victory at the Isle of Man TT.
Between 1981 and 1984 Tony Rutter won four TT Formula 2 World Championships riding Ducati bikes.
From 2004 Ducati also support satellite teams in MotoGP, supplying bikes and technical support.
Ducati supplied customer bikes to Pramac Racing, with Mika Kallio and Niccolò Canepa riding for the team in 2009.
In 2015, Ducati fielded a total of 8 bikes on the MotoGP circuit for 2016 between the factory team, Pramac Yakhnich, Aspar Team, and Avintia Racing.
As of February 2025, Ducati's MotoGP satellite teams are VR46 Racing Team and Gresini Racing.