Morbidelli moves to the Superbike World Championship: Why Ducati is betting on him

• Franco Morbidelli will race for Aruba.it Racing Ducati alongside Iker Lecuona in 2027
• He takes over the Panigale V4 R of Superbike world champion Nicolò Bulega, who moves to VR46 in MotoGP
• The contract runs for 2027, the team holds an option on a second season

The move had been considered certain for weeks, now it is official. On the Monday after the Japanese Grand Prix, Ducati confirmed in a press release that Franco Morbidelli will end his MotoGP career at the end of the 2026 season. The 31-year-old Italian is moving to the Aruba.it Racing Ducati factory team in the Superbike World Championship. This means Morbidelli and Nicolò Bulega are swapping places. The newly crowned Superbike world champion joins Valentino Rossi’s VR46 MotoGP team on a two-year contract in 2027, with Fermin Aldeguer as his team-mate. In return, Morbidelli gets Bulega’s Panigale V4 R and will ride alongside Iker Lecuona in future.

Why is Franco Morbidelli moving from MotoGP to the Superbike World Championship?

Morbidelli could no longer find a seat for the new MotoGP era from 2027 because his results in recent years fell short of expectations. At almost 32, however, he does not want to stop yet and is looking for a fresh start in the Superbike World Championship.

The current season shows the problem clearly. After 16 race weekends, Morbidelli is on 57 championship points on the previous-year GP25 and sits 16th in the standings. That is last among all Ducati riders. Fermin Aldeguer also rides the GP25 and has scored more than twice as many points despite missing three races through injury. Morbidelli is struggling with major grip problems in 2026. He only finished in the top ten of a Grand Prix at the season opener in Thailand. His best result is third place in the wet sprint at Jerez.

What is Morbidelli’s record in MotoGP?

Morbidelli’s record in the premier class is mixed. His strong 2020 season with three wins and the runner-up title was followed by several years in which he could no longer match that form. In MotoGP he has three wins, eight podiums, two pole positions and two fastest race laps to his name.

Including Moto2, Morbidelli has contested 228 races in 14 years in the Grand Prix paddock. In that time he collected eleven wins, 29 podiums and eight pole positions.

From Superstock title to Moto2 world champion

Morbidelli was born in Rome on 4 December 1994 and was the first official member of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Riders Academy. His path into Grand Prix racing was unusual, as he skipped Moto3. Instead, in 2013 he won the Superstock 600 European Championship in the Superbike World Championship paddock on a Kawasaki of the San Carlo team. In the same year he rode his first three Moto2 races, and from 2014 he was a regular. He was already on the podium with Italtrans in his first full season. In 2016 he finished fourth in the championship with the Marc VDS team, and a year later he took the title with eight wins and twelve podiums. He was the first Italian to win the Moto2 World Championship.

Runner-up in 2020, then the slump

In 2018 Morbidelli moved up to MotoGP with Marc VDS on a Honda. His debut season was difficult, but he was still the best rookie of the year. In 2019 he switched to the then-new Petronas Yamaha team, where his rookie team-mate Fabio Quartararo surprisingly outshone him. 2020 brought the turnaround. In the coronavirus-affected season, Morbidelli won three Grands Prix on a Yamaha considered an inferior previous-year model and finished runner-up behind Joan Mir. At the time he was seen as one of the future MotoGP champions.

He stood on the podium once more in early 2021. When Yamaha and Maverick Viñales split in summer 2021, Yamaha brought him into the factory team. However, a complicated knee injury set him back. On the factory M1 he could not match his former successes in the following two years, and he only returned to a MotoGP podium three years later.

Heavy crash before his Ducati debut

In 2024 Morbidelli moved to Pramac Ducati, but the next setback came before the season started. On 30 January 2024 he crashed during private testing at Portimão on a production Ducati Panigale and hit his head on the asphalt. At the hospital in Faro, doctors found a blood clot. On medical advice he skipped the official winter tests in Malaysia and Qatar. Morbidelli later said that he had no memory for two weeks after the accident and did not even recognise close family members.

In the 2024 season Jorge Martin was his team-mate. While Martin became world champion, Morbidelli finished the year ninth in the championship without a Grand Prix podium, reaching the rostrum only in the Misano sprint. Because Pramac then became a Yamaha customer team, Rossi brought him into his own VR46 team for 2025. In spring 2025 he finished third in two Grands Prix and ended up seventh in the championship, his best result since 2020. All in all, his career features one outstanding season and several years in which he could not consistently meet expectations. How much the injuries slowed his development is still impossible to say for sure.

What role do Michelin tyres play in Morbidelli’s move?

The tyres are considered one of the most important arguments in Morbidelli’s favour. The Superbike World Championship switches from Pirelli to Michelin in 2027, and Morbidelli has used Michelin throughout his entire MotoGP career.

MotoGP is going exactly the opposite way and switches from Michelin to Pirelli for the new season. In the Superbike World Championship, Michelin tyres will also be used in the support classes from 2027. Aruba team boss Stefano Cecconi emphasises that Morbidelli knows the new tyres very well and can therefore give the team valuable feedback. In addition, he stays on a Ducati despite changing series. According to Cecconi, this ensures continuity in working methods and technical approach. He also says that the 2027 season will bring several changes and will be an important challenge for rider and team.

Ducati is not alone in this thinking. Morbidelli is already the third current MotoGP rider to move to the Superbike World Championship for 2027. Jack Miller is going to Yamaha, Brad Binder will ride for BMW alongside Miguel Oliveira. Both of them also bring experience with Michelin tyres.

What does Ducati say about signing Morbidelli?

Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall’Igna sees Morbidelli as a reinforcement for the Superbike project and above all highlights his experience from many years in MotoGP. He describes him as a very talented rider who has shown speed, technical sensitivity and adaptability at the highest level throughout his career.

“After many years spent in MotoGP, he will bring to our Superbike project an extremely valuable wealth of experience.”

Dall’Igna expects Morbidelli’s good knowledge of the Ducati environment and the way the factory works to help him with the switch. He considers this particularly important in view of the new technical challenges in 2027. According to the engineer, Ducati trusts Morbidelli to keep the project at the top.

Morbidelli himself is delighted about the step:

“I am very happy and excited about this new chapter in my career. I thank Ducati and Aruba for this opportunity.”

He says he wants to give everything to do justice to a team that has been fighting at the front for years and has just won the Superbike World Championship.

What contract does Morbidelli get at Aruba.it Racing Ducati?

Morbidelli receives a contract for 2027, and the team holds an option on a second season in 2028. Aruba already used the same model when signing Iker Lecuona in summer 2025.

Whether Morbidelli can exploit his potential on the Panigale V4 R remains to be seen. The option gives the team a safeguard. The move was already emerging in July, and the first concrete reports of an agreement followed in August. The list of candidates for the seat is said to have been long, with leading Moto2 rider Manu Gonzalez reportedly among those in the frame.

It was not only his past results that spoke for Morbidelli. On track he is considered a tough opponent, off it friendly and polite. Cecconi is said to particularly value these qualities with regard to the atmosphere in the team. For main sponsor Aruba, a cloud storage provider, and for Ducati, an Italian rider is also seen as an advantage in marketing.

What awaits Morbidelli at Aruba.it Racing Ducati in 2027?

Morbidelli is joining a team that dominated the 2026 Superbike World Championship and accordingly expects wins. Bulega won all but four races this season with two race weekends still to go.

The only rider who was able to beat Bulega in 2026 is Morbidelli’s future team-mate Iker Lecuona. The Spaniard is second in the championship and, like Morbidelli, a former MotoGP rider. With Lecuona, Miguel Oliveira, Remy Gardner, Sam Lowes and newcomers Jack Miller and Brad Binder, several former MotoGP riders will meet in the Superbike World Championship in 2027. The grid for the coming season is thus increasingly taking shape.

For Morbidelli it is also a return to familiar surroundings, as his international career began in the Superbike paddock in 2013 with the Superstock title. The starting position for his fresh start is good: a winning bike, a world championship team and experience with the new tyres. At the same time, he is taking over the seat of a world champion. After his up-and-down MotoGP years, it remains to be seen whether he can seize this opportunity.

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