Whilst there’s just one round to go in the 2021 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, there’s already some huge news happening with regards to 2022 up and down the paddock. However, some huge news is that Oli Bayliss, son of three-time WorldSBK Champion Troy Bayliss, will graduate to the FIM Supersport World Championship for 2022 with the Barni Racing Team and bring the Bayliss name back to World Championship racing. The recently tuned 18-year-old will be part of the Italian team, who expand their WorldSBK paddock presence to WorldSSP, the first time the Barni Racing Team will feature in two Championship’s in the WorldSBK paddock at once.
Born in 2003, Oli Bayliss has grown up around motorcycles, with father, Troy being one of the legends of WorldSBK with three titles. In 2017 and 2018, Oli’s national racing journey began in the Australian Supersport 300 class where he finished a respectable fourth overall in both seasons, before moving up to Australian Supersport in 2019 before becoming a race winner in 2020 at Phillip Island. Stepping up to the Australian Superbike class in 2021, Bayliss took a win in Darwin, his first in the class and now, for 2022, he’ll move into World Supersport, just five years after starting his journey in the national championships.
Speaking about the deal, Oli Bayliss is looking forward to focusing on motorcycle racing now that he’s finished with school: “I’m really happy to announce that I will be racing for Barni Racing Team in the World Supersport Championship on the Ducati Panigale V2. I’ve finished my school program, which means I can now put my focus completely on racing motorbikes, training and only that.”
Troy Bayliss, Oli’s father and triple WorldSBK Champion and MotoGP™ Grand Prix winner, commented on his son’s progression: “Oli has been brought up around racing, 2021 has been his first year on Ducati V4 R in the ASBK and taking the win in Darwin earlier this year came sooner than we thought, I think the move to Barni Racing Team is a great opportunity, I hope he enjoys the V-twin as much as I did.”
Looking ahead to the 2022 season and seeing his team’s expansion and undertaking of young talents, Marco Barnabo, team principal of the Barni Racing Team, said: “In 2022 we want to focus on young talents who can travel along together with us for a while. We want to help young riders to be, in the future, the next Champions both in Supersport and Superbike. That’s why, when the opportunity to sign with Oli for the Supersport World Championship came, we immediately decided to take it in agreement with Ducati.
“Luca Bernardi is 20-years-old, Oli is 18. We’ve never had such a young team, but I think this is the right time for this choice. For the first time, we’ll be on track with two bikes both in WorldSSP and WorldSBK and at the beginning we won’t focus on results, but only on the growth of these two young riders. We were the first team to believe in bringing Ducati back to Supersport with the Panigale V2, and we’re very proud to see the interest arising around this bike and this Championship.”
Paolo Ciabatti, Sporting Director Ducati Corse, is also delighted to welcome the Bayliss name back to the World Championship: “We are really pleased and excited that Oli will be debuting in World Supersport next year with the new Panigale V2 and the Barni Racing Team! The Bayliss family and Ducati have always been linked very strongly and we have recently launched the V2 Bayliss Replica special version, to celebrate Troy’s first world title with Ducati 20 years ago, so now the tradition continues with Oli, and we are really happy about that.”