Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci will miss the first pre-season test of the 2017 season this week in Valencia, the Italian flying back home for family reasons.
The Pramac team will instead field Ducati test rider Michele Pirro for the two-day outing, which starts tomorrow. This won’t be the first time Pirro has dawned Pramac leathers in 2016, as he was brought in for the Argentine, US and Spanish Grand Prix whilst Petrucci recovered from a hand injury he sustained during the pre-season at Phillip Island.
Petrucci won an inter-team battle with teammate Scott Redding in Valencia, started by the team in Brno as a fair way of deciding who will receive the Desmosedici GP17 next year. The Italian won by 46 points to the Briton’s 28.
Pirro will ride a ‘hybrid’ GP16/GP17 machine at this week’s test, and it has been rumoured that the factory team could hand Pramac a full-blooded GP17 to further development work at Jerez later in the month, as the Borgo Panigale squad will be absent from that particular test.
The first day of track action is due to get underway tomorrow at 10:00 local time, and is being broadcast live on BT Sport and the motogp.com subscription service. Read Motorsport will also be bringing you the latest from what promises to be an enthralling test, as a number of high-profile riders make their debut at their new teams.
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