In an effort to take their development progamme a step further, team principal Livio Suppo decided to hire former World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss as test rider. The former Ducati Xerox Team ace will therefore join current test rider Vittoriano Guareschi in Mugello this week, in order to figure out the best developments for the GP9.
In addition to Bayliss recruitment, Suppo has also appointed a new race engineer for Hayden, Juan Martinez. The Spaniard will therefore replace former engineer Cristhian Pupulin, who has now been given a new role as data analyst within the company. Bike's electronics have also underwent some updates, ahead of the French GP this weekend.
“After the race at Jerez, which was fantastic for Casey but very difficult for Nicky, we had a few meetings to analyse our technical and organisational structure, with the goal of improving the all-round performances of our riders,” said Suppo in a press release from Ducati.
“We came to the conclusion that after starting the season with not all of the Ducati riders able to match their positive form in winter testing, maybe this is the right time to introduce some new technical ideas in terms of the electronics as well as boosting our track presence in order to provide all of the Ducati riders with better support.”
“The GP9 is still a very young machine and for the first time in MotoGP we have five bikes on the grid. For these two reasons we have decided that we need to concentrate more on co-ordinating all the data that we gather at each race in order to provide more direction for development,” added the Italian manager.
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