Ben Spies excited to be part of Ducati family

After missing out on his first Ducati debut at Valencia due to his shoulder injury, Ben Spiesfinally became a full member of the Ducati family when he took part in last night’s unveiling ofPramac Racing Team’s GP13.

Pramac which will have factory support from Ducati and the team also has two new sponsors,Ignite Asset Management (a New York-based, alternative-asset-management firm led by a group of hedge-fund industry veterans and supported by private investors with a passion for motorsports) for Spies, while team mate and MotoGP rookie Andrea Iannone will be sponsored by Energy T.I., an energy company.

Hopefully ‘ignite’ will also be the key word that will help set Spies on fire after his horribile 2012 season with Yamaha.

“I am excited to be a part of the Ducati family. This is something I’ve wanted from the beginning of my racing career. My team and I have our work cut out for us and new goals to meet, but we’ll benefit from factory support and Audi coming on board. Ducati has four strong riders with different styles, which should improve the Desmosedici and bring it back up to the top where it belongs,” said Spies

Pramac Racing will play a key role in the development of the Ducati Desmosedici GP13, and Ben Spies’ experience and talent will be essential to the project and Francesco Guidotti said that Pramac he is honoured to have have Spies as part of their team. [Ducati had previously turned down Spies when he knocked on the Italian manufacturer’s door back in 2008 - the American then turned to World Superbikes in 2009 as a stepping stone to MotoGP].

“Pramac Racing Team is honoured to welcome Ben Spies, who has enormous talent and a spectacular riding style. We’re expecting a big challenge, but thanks to the important support of sponsor Ignite Asset Management and our new status as a Ducati factory-supported team, we are sure we will live up to expectations. With Ben, we’ll endeavour to speed up the development process on the bike to achieve our objectives as soon as possible. We’re enthusiastically looking forward to the 2013 season.”

Paolo Ciabatti, Ducati Corse MotoGP Project Director added: “We’re very pleased with the agreement we’ve reached with Ignite Pramac Racing Team for 2013, which has the Francesco Guidotti-run team taking on factory-supported status, with an even closer link to Ducati’s racing department. This is also demonstrated with the presence for the first time of Pramac Racing Team at Wrooom, the fantastic event taking place in Madonna di Campiglio. We’re very confident that Ben Spies will be able to use his talents to help us with the development of the bike and to achieve the results we’re after more quickly, and we thank the sponsor Ignite Asset Management for its support on this project.”

from TWOWHEELSBLOG

Ben Spies to ride for Ducati's Junior Team?

Ben Spies    continuing future in MotoGP racing seems to be shining a little brighter these days, if we believe at least some of the rumors.

Every since his shocking announcement announcing he was quitting Yamaha at the end of the season, Spies has been widely tipped to return to World Superbikes (according to BMW Italia’s Andrea Buzzoni he has a pre-contract that will expire in the next few days), but the American seems to have had a change of heart regarding MotoGP, so he admitted at Brno that he is in talks with San Carlo Honda Gresini (Fausto Gresini has also confirmed it) and he has also been linked with Suzuki’s return in 2014, but several Italian media sources are reporting that Spies has also been contacted by Ducati to ride for the Junior team, which comes as a suprise, as it was widely expected it would be Moto2 riders Andrea Iannone and Scott Redding or Danilo Petrucci in the Junior team, as all three did a full blown test on the GP12 at Mugello.

Despite contrasting news of late on whether the Italian manufacturer would acutally field a two-rider satellite team to help in development, Ducati’s CEO Gabriele del Torchio, went on the record with Spain’s Marca.com, confirming that in the next week or so, they should announce their plans and also the names of the riders.

with twowheelsblog