Ducati sticks with Michael Ruben Rinaldi for 2022 WorldSBK season

Michael Ruben Rinaldi will remain with the Aruba.it Ducati team for the 2022 WorldSBK Championship season after agreeing a contract extension with the manufacturer 

The Italian graduated to the factory team for 2021, replacing long-time collaborator Chaz Davies, to pair up with Scott Redding as a reward for a series of giant-killing performances on the privateer Go Eleven Ducati.

Though Rinaldi has struggled to get the regular measure of the Briton over the course of the year he stole the headlines on home soil at Misano with two dominant wins and a second place finish, plus a fourth podium of the year at Assen.

He currently sits sixth in the standings and is locked in a seven-way fight for fourth in the standings alongside Alex Lowes (Kawasaki), Andrea Locatelli, Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha) and BMW pair Tom Sykes and Michael van der Mark.

A product of Ducati’s youth development programme, Rinaldi made his WorldSBK debut in 2018 under the Aruba.it Junior banner after winning the European Superstock 1000 series, though it was his impressive showings on the Go Eleven Panigale V4 R that convinced Ducati to promote him to ‘red’ in 2021, despite controversially dropping Davies who subsequently went the other way to Go Eleven.

Rinaldi will form one half of a revised rider line-up for Ducati following the recent confirmation Alvaro Bautista will return for 2022, replacing the BMW Motorrad bound Redding.