Gigi Dall'Igna's defection to Ducati has thrown up a number of problems, not least the final destination of Eugene Laverty and what machinery Nicky Hayden will ride in Jorge Aspar Martinez's team next season.

The smart money on the latter would be a production Honda due to Honda America's interest in the former MotoGP world champion and apparently Aspar is due to make an announcement in the very near future.

On the latter, Laverty is thought to be following his former WSBK team boss and will join Pramac in 2014 on a full prototype Desmosedici instead of going to Aspar as Hayden's team-mate.

Some of this revolves around where Ben Spies will land next year, if he rides at all. There is some rumour in the MotoGP paddock that his shoulder is a lot worse than anyone is letting on and he may need a full year away from competition.

Ducati have apparently been trying to steer Spies in the direction of their World Superbike Panigale after Hayden turned down the 'opportunity'. The Bologna factory have also been courting Brits Chaz Davies and Leon Camier.

Davies' current Goldbet team will be without BMW support in 2014 but may well have an option to run a brace of S1000RRs as a privateer team or turn to Ducati as Alstare boss Francis 'Fanny' Batta is allegedly trying to get out of his two-year deal to switch to Aprilia.

With no naturally fast Italians to fill the seats (besides Davide Guigliano who will say with Althea as his team boss Genesio Bevilacqua is also his personal manager) two Brits in an Italian team isn't as far-fetched as you would think.

Camier's current Fixi Suzuki team, according to Laverty, are keeping a space open for him should the MotoGP deals fail to come off - which is pretty unlikely. Team manager Paul Denning has a long association with ex-GP man John Hopkins who is looking for a way back, so he could fill a seat or find a space in the British Superbike paddock…

Seat-swapping in BSB always begins late on and this year is no exception. Alex Lowes' much rumoured but not officially confirmed jump to Paul Bird's MotoGP outfit leaves two spaces at Samsung Honda to fill as there is now no chance of Ryuichi Kiyonari remaining for another year.

Stuart Easton is confirmed at the chicken magnate's Kawasaki team and Bird has said reigning champion Shane Byrne will also be back but Byrne has been active on Twitter busy telling the world he hasn't actually signed a piece of paper.

Former champion Tommy Hill looks set for a return as a team manager but he isn't, as yet, in a position to talk about riders, sponsors or machinery.