Valentino Rossi's VR46 Ducati team has settled on Andrea Iannone as its Malaysian Grand Prix stand-in for regular rider Fabio Di Giannantonio - ending Iannone's five-year MotoGP hiatus in the process.
With Di Giannantonio having to curtail his first season as a VR46 rider to go in for surgery, Iannone was swiftly earmarked as a possible replacement and has been officially confirmed for his 119th MotoGP start in the lead-up to Sepang.
"It's a really great story!" enthused team director Uccio Salucci, best-known as Rossi's right-hand man.
"MotoGP is the most technological and high-performance bike, I'm honored that they thought of me and I felt like I had to say yes to this opportunity immediately as soon as it was offered to me," said Iannone.
In the early stages of Iannone’s premier-class career, the Italian was widely regarded as one of the most naturally-talented riders on the grid - something that, after a successful stint at satellite team Pramac, earned him a shot at factory colours when he was promoted to Ducati’s main squad alongside Andrea Dovizioso in 2015.
However, still with a reputation for being somewhat reckless even in the main squad, he lost his seat early the next year when he divebombed Dovizioso in the final corner in Termas de Rio Hondo, taking out both of them to cost Ducati a then-rare double podium.
To say Ducati was unimpressed is to put it mildly - and it made the team’s bosses' decision for them as they debated which of the Andreas would partner new signing Jorge Lorenzo for 2017.
Cast out by Ducati, Iannone spent two tough seasons at Suzuki, largely remembered for leading the team’s development in the wrong direction in his first season and as a result finishing a distant 13th in the championship without coming close to the podium. An improved 2018 wasn't enough to safeguard his place in the line-up, and an Aprilia switch followed instead.
There were hints of the old Iannone form at times through that first (and only) Aprilia season, but they never quite crystalised into strong results before everything came crashing down around him at the end of the season.
Drug-tested after the penultimate race in Malaysia, it was announced in December 2019 that he had tested positive for drostanolone, an anabolic steroid linked to weight loss in athletes.
Coming at the end of a season where Iannone had bragged regularly about the performance gains from his weight loss, it looked like a relatively straightforward case - and Iannone was subsequently found guilty and handed an 18-month ban after presenting a weak defence to the FIM suggesting (but failing to prove) that contaminated meat was to blame.
Unwilling to accept that ban, he then appealed it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, a decision that attracted the attention of the World Anti Doping Agency, who reexamined Iannone’s evidence and successfully lobbied the court to extend his ban to the maximum four years.
With such a significant ban looking all but certain to end his motorcycle racing career, it came as something of a surprise when it was announced that Iannone would instead debut in the World Superbike paddock in 2024, joining satellite Ducati team GoEleven.
Very much a different character than the rather bullish and arrogant racer who left MotoGP in disgrace in 2019, Iannone has taken to production racing with a flourish this year, too, finishing on the podium in the first race at Phillip Island and finally returning to the top step of the podium at Aragon.
Previously regarded as a difficult-to-work-with character, especially after his elevation to factory status in 2015, it seems like four years on the sidelines haven’t just been a humbling experience for him but have also perhaps given the Italian an opportunity to mature that’s not always available to racers while still competing.
That’s perhaps best personified by the special helmet he raced at his home WorldSBK race in Misano earlier this season, with the rainbow-themed lid celebrating love, respect and equality the last thing that you’d have expected from the fiery Iannone at the height of his time as a MotoGP racer.
And in that context, and with the very different personality that he’s presented himself with in 2024, it’s hard not to see a MotoGP return as something of the completion of his redemption arc - even if he does remain insistent that he was completely innocent of any doping offences.
It’s unlikely to open the door to a full-time return to the premier class given that he’s now 35 years old, and will be the second-oldest rider on the grid in Sepang this weekend, only nine days younger than the retiring Aleix Espargaro.
However, it means a chance to at least ride once more in MotoGP, and if he does so with the style that he’s shown since his return to competition, then it’ll be a welcome (if somewhat delayed) conclusion to a unique premier-class career.
