Ducati have this morning announced that Pecco Bagnaia will join Jack Miller in the works MotoGP team for 2021.

Bagnaia was Moto2 World Champion in 2018 and made his MotoGP debut last year with the Ducati Desmosedici GP bike of the Pramac Racing Team and has shown this year ever-increasing competitiveness, fighting for the podium in several GPs.

In 2021, the 23-year-old rider hailing from Piedmont will join current Pramac teammate Miller in the Ducati Team, who is in his seventh season in the premier class.

“I’d chosen to be a Ducati rider even before becoming a Moto2 World Champion in 2018, and they had chosen me even before I had known that one day I would become one,” said Bagnaia.

“It was our bet because until that moment I had always been a fast rider, but I had nothing concrete under my belt: Ducati decided to believe in it even before everyone else.

“We didn’t know how it was going to go, but to this day, if I had to go back, I’d do it all over again. My MotoGP debut was not easy, but at Ducati, they never questioned me: they gave me all the support and confidence that a rookie needs and they let me do experience in 2019.

“I listened to them, I trusted them, together we learned to know each other and understand each other, and now we form a great team. They taught me a method of work that allowed us to take away some nice satisfactions and I think that’s just the beginning.

“Today I am the happiest person in the world, for me, it is a dream come true: being an official Ducati rider has always been my ambition, and I succeeded together with all of those who had always believed in me even when things did not go well.

“A special thank goes to Claudio Domenicali, Gigi Dall’Igna, Paolo Ciabatti and Davide Tardozzi for the trust, to the Pramac Racing Team that welcomed me as a family and to the VR46 Riders Academy that has always supported me all these years.”