Yesterday we posted the rumor that Randy de Puniet may have been headed to Pramac Ducati in 2011, however his manager Eric Mahe, has denied that he’s been in talks so far with the Italian team.
It seems that the French rider was ready to re-up with Checchinello and even had ELF ready to support the team in a bigger way, however after De Puniet’s leg injury and talks that Andrea Dovizioso could have been ended up either with Gresini or Cecchinello, negotiations died down.
Dorna wants to keep DePuniet in the series to have a French rider, but they also want Moto2 champion Toni Elias back in MotoGP and as Elias certainly prefers a Honda over a Ducati, he’ll end with Cecchinello while Dorna will have to help fund Pramac even more than they usually do with satellite teams, to run a second Ducati for the Frenchman.
“As of today, it’s almost 99% certain that Elias will ride for Cecchinello next year,” said Mahe.
“With Suzuki we dropped everything at Malaysia, because the manufacturer doesn’t want to run two bikes in 2011.
We’ll have to see for 2012.
That leaves the Pramac option for Randy, however at this date we haven’t had any discussions, hopefully it will happen at Estoril next week.
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