Aspar Mahindra rider Francesco Bagnaia has revealed that he will test the Ducati GP14.2 at the post-Valencia Grand Prix test on November 15 after winning a bet with his team.
The Italian rider was promised by team boss Jorge Martinez ‘Aspar’ and Sporting Director Gino Borsoi that if he won two races in 2016 he would get to test the Desmosedici run by the team in the MotoGP class.
Bagnaia took his and Mahindra’s maiden Grand Prix victory after a thrilling battle to the flag at the TT Circuit Assen in Holland in June. The Aspar rider tallied up his second win in the World Championship last weekend in the bizarre, crash-strewn Malaysian Grand Prix. That result saw him move into third in the standings by two points with just one race to go this season.
“We made the bet early in the season, in Argentina or Texas,” he said. “We were in the MotoGP garage, Jorge Martín and myself. I sat on Eugene Laverty’s bike and I said to Martín that I wanted to try it. Gino Borsoi was in the garage and he heard me, so he came over and set me the challenge that if I won two races this season I could ride the Ducati in the test after the Grand Prix at Valencia.
“It is something very important for me,” Bagnaia added. “Not every rider gets this opportunity so to have it is incredible. Before I didn’t want to think too much about it because if it didn’t happen I would have felt worse. But now that I have achieved it, I am daydreaming about it every day! The plan is to ride five or six laps on the Tuesday but I don’t think I’ll stop until it runs out of fuel!”
Bagnaia will become just the fourth Moto3 rider since the classes’ inception back in 2012 to ride a MotoGP bike, following in the footsteps of Jack Miller and Maverick Vinales, as well as Alex Marquez who tested a factory Honda alongside his brother Marc at Valencia at the end of 2014 as a reward for winning that year’s lightweight class title.
This test will mark the perfect end to the Italian’s time in the lightweight class and with Aspar, as he’ll make the step up to the Moto2 World Championship next season with the Valentino Rossi-backed Sky Racing VR46 squad.
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