{"id":94496,"date":"2025-08-25T11:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T11:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/94496\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T11:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T11:06:07","slug":"ex-motogp-rider-fills-best-free-wsbk-2026-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/94496\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-MotoGP rider fills best free WSBK 2026 seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider Iker Lecuona has been named as two-time World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista’s replacement in Ducati’s factory team in the production series.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old Lecuona will partner current championship leader Nicolo Bulega, also 25, and has been signed on an apparent one-year deal to ride what is widely regarded as the strongest package in the world championship.<\/p>\n

Lecuona had spent two seasons in MotoGP with Tech3 in 2020 and 2021, as team-mate to first Miguel Oliveira and then Danilo Petrucci, before he and Petrucci were ushered out in favour of an all-rookie line-up.<\/p>\n

He was picked up by Honda for its long-struggling WSBK effort and is currently in his fourth season in the line-up, all four spent with fellow Moto2 graduate Xavi Vierge as his team-mate.<\/p>\n

\"Xavi<\/p>\n

Both Lecuona and Vierge have had the occasional high point at Honda, but both have been beset by injuries, with Lecuona in particular spending a lot of time on the sidelines. He ended up averaging 4.9 points per start to Vierge’s 4.3, and scored two podiums to Vierge’s one.<\/p>\n

But Lecuona was also used by Honda as a capable MotoGP injury stand-in, and was part of its Suzuka 8 Hour-winning line-up in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"Iker<\/p>\n

Honda, which is widely understood to have already recruited Moto2 frontrunner Jake Dixon to its WSBK works team for 2026 and is currently deliberating on Dixon’s team-mate, thanked Lecuona “for his dedication and professionalism” during his tenure.<\/p>\n

Ducati decided earlier in this year not to pick up two-time champion Bautista’s option for 2025, as his form had declined last year and worsened further in 2025 – something he has repeatedly attributed to a change in the series’ weight rules, which he has felt unfairly targeted by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider Iker Lecuona has been named as two-time World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista’s replacement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-94496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}