Ducati's history with motorsport began with speed records on Cucciolo motorized bicycle factory racers in 1951, followed in 1954 with bringing in Fabio Taglioni to found a road-racing program with the 100 Gran Sport.

Capirossi struggled at the Dutch TT race a week later, while Gibernau was replaced by German Alex Hofmann for several rounds after undergoing additional surgery.

With Gibernau also sidelined for the final round of the season at Valencia, Ducati recalled Bayliss, who was recently crowned Superbike World champion.

While, for the 2007 season, MotoGP reduced the allowed engine displacement, Ducati started development of its 800 cc motorcycle extremely early.

According to racing chief Filippo Preziosi, by August 2006, Ducati had already built twenty 800 cc engines with various specifications.

Ducati continued to be the fastest with a bike that was markedly quicker than its rivals as was displayed by Casey Stoner on tracks with long straights.

Melandri had a difficult time adapting to the GP-8's performance, and mutually agreed to shorten his two-year contract to one year midway through.

Known as the "Ducati Marlboro Team", Stoner and Hayden piloted the factory Carbon Fibre chassis Desmodesici GP9.

Halfway through the season, Finnish rookie Mika Kallio was competed for the team for 3 races, as Stoner was unavailable due to illness.

[14] On 15 August 2010, after the Brno race, Valentino Rossi confirmed he would be riding for Ducati, signing a two-year deal from 2011[15][16][17] partnering with Hayden.

2015 awaited the highly anticipated GP15, a full redesign of the Desmosedici by new team race director Gigi Dall'Igna which debuted at the second Sepang test.

After mainly poor results, Jorge Lorenzo's 2-year contract with Ducati ended with a move to Honda to join Marc Márquez, while Dovizioso remained.

[27] Dovizioso's last year with Ducati ended with a victory in Austria, while Danilo Petrucci won the 2020 French Grand Prix.

Australian Troy Corser won the 1996 title on a factory-spec Ducati fielded by Austrian team Promotor Racing.

In 2003, the rule changes in MotoGP allowing 4-stroke engines meant that the Japanese manufacturers had focused their resources there, leaving the Superbike World Championship with limited factory involvement.

2004 was a similar story, James Toseland winning the title although Ten Kate Honda's Chris Vermeulen prevented a Ducati clean-sweep.

The FIM, the sanctioning body for the Superbike World Championship, raised the displacement limit for 2 cylinder engines to 1,200 cc.

[43] During 2011-12 Ducati gave factory support to Althea Racing privateer team, winning the 2011 title with Carlos Checa.

Having parted from Althea at the end of 2012, for 2013 Ducati supported Francis Batta's Alstare Racing team introducing the new 1199 Panigale R in the world championship.

In the AMA Superbike Championship, Ducati has had its share of success, with Doug Polen winning the title in 1993 and Troy Corser the following year in 1994.

Ducati had an important place in early Superbike racing history in the United States and vice versa: In 1977, Cycle magazine editors Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling took a Ducati 750SS to first place at Daytona in the second-ever season of AMA Superbike racing.

Big enough for Ducati to team with Italian specialty builder NCR to craft a limited-edition update, New Blue, based on the 2007 Sport 1000S, and big enough to inspire the crew at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum (see Barber Motorsports Park), arguably one of the most important motorcycle museums in the world, to commission Ducati specialist Rich Lambrechts to craft a bolt-by-bolt replica for its collection.

Ducati supplied customer bikes to Pramac Racing, with Mika Kallio and Niccolò Canepa riding for the team in 2009.