Another domino has fallen in the MotoGP satellite team Silly Season. Danilo Petrucci has signed on to remain with the Pramac Ducati squad for the 2018 season. Petrucci had been courted by Aprilia, but Petrucci has elected to stay with the team and the factory with which he has scored his most recent successes.
Petrucci has been key to the early progress made with the Ducati Desmosedici GP17. The Italian won the right to use the sole GP17 in the Pramac garage after outscoring his teammate at the end of the 2016 season.
At the start of the season, that had more downsides than he had realized, as Ducati were using Petrucci to test parts and setup for the new bike, and then filtering that data back to the factory squad.
Since Jerez, however, Petrucci has been left to get on with the job of finding a setup which works for him, and that has been reflected in his results. He has scored two podiums so far this year, and second on the grid at the Sachsenring is his third front-row start in a row.
With Petrucci out of the running, Alvaro Bautista becomes the prime target to replace Sam Lowes at Aprilia, if the Italian factory decides to let him go.
But Bautista is leaning towards remaining with the Aspar Ducati team, depending on the level of machinery available to him. Andrea Iannone has also been linked to the ride, but Iannone’s slump in form is not making him a particularly attractive prospect.
Source: Pramac Racing
