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Last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix would prove highly successful for Ducati, as the Italian marque celebrated its first MotoGP race victory for almost six years when Andrea Iannone led home Andrea Dovizioso at the Red Bull Ring.

Ducati wins have not been as rare of late in WorldSBK, as since April 2015 Chaz Davies has celebrated no less than nine victories on the 1199 Panigale R.

Ahead of the race action in Spielberg, Sporting Director Paolo Ciabatti spared five minutes of his time for WorldSBK.com, discussing the 2016 fortunes of the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati squad, Chaz Davies, Davide Giugliano and Marco Melandri.

Paolo, there are four rounds to go in WorldSBK this season. How do you assess the campaign so far, between Phillip Island and Laguna Seca?
It has been a partly positive season. We have won races with Chaz, but we have also made a few mistakes and had a few DNFs. It looks like it’s going to be a Kawasaki story for the title; Jonathan Rea is very competitive, doesn’t make any mistakes and even when he is not winning he is always finishing on the podium.

We said we would be fighting for the championship and now it doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible. We are not satisfied 100%, but we will try our best. We have brought several improvements for the Panigale this season and I think we can win more races in the last part of this season and be able to fight for the championship next year.

Chaz Davies’ contract has been renewed. How do you sum up his 2016, compared with the pre-season expectations?
Chaz is one of the top riders and he will be racing with Ducati in World Superbike for two more years. We strongly believe he is capable of challenging for the championship. Obviously we need to give him the possibility to have a little bit more from the bike, so he doesn’t have to risk so much, as there have been a few occasions on which he has crashed and obviously this is costing him challenging for the championship. We think he is definitely a title challenger, so it is up to Ducati to give him something extra on the bike to allow him to be capable of fighting for the title.

Next year, Chaz will be joined by Marco Melandri. After two years out of WorldSBK and one out of racing completely, how confident are you that he will be on the pace right from the beginning?
Marco is one of the most successful riders in terms of race wins in World Superbike. He is definitely capable of winning races and was also very successful previously, in MotoGP. He has been away from racing for a while, but has already started training on-track with a street Panigale. He has a great will to get back to racing. Maybe for him it will finally be time to be fighting for the championship in World Superbike.

You will part company with Davide Giugliano at the end of this year. What were the reasons behind that decision?
First of all, we like Davide. He has been with us for three years and he won with us in Superstock 1000. He is a good friend and a very talented rider. Last year he had two very big accidents and it hasn’t been easy for him to come back and ride a bike which wasn’t developed with his input (as he hadn’t taken part in many races last year). There are many reasons. I think the important thing is that we still have a very good relationship with him and he is still very young. We don’t know...maybe we could meet again in the future. In the meantime, we will try our best to make him win his first World Superbike race – and we would like it to happen on a Ducati.

Jorge Lorenzo has signed with Ducati for MotoGP next year. How will this affect the budget and resources for the World Superbike project?
Luckily, we are quite secure in terms of sponsorships! We have a strong partner in World Superbike with Aruba – which is not really a sponsor, but a partner in managing the team. We have a separate budget for World Superbike. Even though it is not always easy to find the money to make everything happen, it looks like we will be able to secure sufficient budget to be able to fight for the championship.

What does Ducati have to do to win the WorldSBK title next year?
Maybe to do a little bit more on the bike. The Kawasaki is obviously extremely competitive and we need to be able to improve our bike. We have a few ideas already in mind, so hopefully it is just a question of a few adjustments on the bike.

The full interview with Paolo Ciabatti can be viewed now on WorldSBK.com