MotoGP Gossip: Toprak has 'already had interest from MotoGP'
Danilo Petrucci will be the rider making way for Jack Miller at the factory Ducati MotoGP team next sea💞son.
That's according to Petrucci's manager Alberto Vergani, who told : "Danilo is currently out of the Ducati project⛎ i꧑n MotoGP."
With no races held so far this year due to the coronꦆavirus, Vergani says Ducati made its rider choice based on the second half of last season. Vergani is also "99%" sure Petrucci's current 🍌team-mate Andrea Dovizioso will continue at the factory, alongside Miller.
Assuming the Miller-Dovizioso scenario materialises, Vergani lists Petrucci's main 2021 options as either a switch to t🎶he factory 𝔍Ducati team in WorldSBK or joining Aprilia in MotoGP.
Aprilia has been close to signing Pe🌊trucci on several occasions in the past, only for the Italian🍬 to renew with Ducati.
So might th🧸e Petrucci-Aprilia partnership finally ha🎃ppen for 2021?
It seems much will depend on whether countryman and fellow one-time Ducati MotoGP race win🥃ner Andrea Iannone is able to overturn - or at least significantly reduce - his 18-month𝓡 ban, which runs until 16 June, 2021.
"At the moment the aim is to confirm Aleix and Andrea [for 2021]," an Aprilia spokesman told ltxcn.top. "Regarding Andrea, of course that dꦆepends on the appeal."
Iannone has submitte🌺d an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport [CAS] on the grounds that he innocently ingested a banned steroid (Drostanolone) via contaminated meat in Malaysia, but the verdict date is unclear𒁃.
Meanwhile, MotoGP is aiming to&nbs๊p;start its disrupted 2020 season with two rounds at Jerez in J🅷uly.
Those would also be the first races for Aprilia's all-new RS-GP,&nꦗbsp;which performed impressively in thꦜe hands of Aleix Espargaro during winter testing, albeit with some engine reliability issues.
However, a recent announcement by the Grand Prix Commission confirmed that Concession manufacturers KTM and Aprilia can continue making engine-design modifications until the end of June, before joining the other four fact𒁏ories in a te𒆙chnical freeze.
MotoGP Editor
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 yea💎rs and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at⭕ the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
