It's official that, as expected, it will be Ducati test rider Michele Pirro who replaces VR46 racer Fabio Di Giannantonio at the final round of the 2024 MotoGP season at Barcelona this weekend.
Pirro is taking over from fellow Italian Andrea Iannone following his one-off ride for the team at the previous round in earlier in November.
And, while fans might have been clamouring to see Iannone rather than Pirro getting another turn out on the bike after a four-year absence from the premier class thanks to his doping sanction, it makes far more sense for Ducati to make sure that its test rider is the one who gets the chance to wrap up the 2024 season.
Pirro has been something of a MotoGP stalwart during his time as Ducati's lead test rider, and the Barcelona weekend is set to extend a remarkable record by one more year and make it 12 seasons in a row in which he has made at least one appearance either as a wildcard or injury replacement since losing his full-time seat at the end of the 2012 season.
Those frequent appearances have come not just because he's convenient for Ducati to parachute in as an injury replacement, though. Pirro's been a key part of the development of the Desmosedici project - and really the first of MotoGP’s truly high-profile test riders - and his regular race appearances keep him sharp and up to speed.
That's something that's become more important than ever before in an age of aerodynamics, with bikes' performances dramatically changing in the slipstream of others, something that's all but impossible to replicate in private testing or windtunnels.
But Ducati's utter dominance and a change in the concession system for 2024 meant it lost the ability to field wildcards at any round - which has until now denied Pirro the opportunity to make a MotoGP appearance this year.
With a key 2025 test coming on the Tuesday following this weekend’s rescheduled race at Barcelona, he will now have the chance to get himself up to race speed before helping factory racers Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez transition to next year's machine.
It would, of course, have been nice to see what Iannone would have been capable of had he been given an extra weekend on the bike following his baptism of fire at Sepang.
But his one-off appearance is also something of the closing of a chapter, given it allowed him what was most likely one final chance to ride a MotoGP machine after serving his doping ban.
A comeback premier-class race never seemed likely until very recently, even after a decent-if-not-stunning return to racing for the first time in four years in the World Superbike championship this season.
Iannone will remain there for 2025 as well and a full-time return to MotoGP at 35 years old seems all but impossible, meaning that his Sepang ride is as good a place as any to call it quits for the greater good of the project.
There is one rider, mind you, who was perhaps more fitting a choice for VR46 than either Iannone or Pirro: former Valentino Rossi protege Nicolo Bulega, who ended 2024 as the World Superbike runner-up in his rookie season in the championship.
Bulega was very impressive on his Ducati WSBK debut this year straight off the back of winning the World Supersport crown in 2023, and was initially believed to be one of the names linked to Rossi’s team.
But his previous relationship with Rossi and his Academy project broke down at the end of the 2019 season, and it seems that the divide between the pair was too much for even Ducati to try to repair.
