Marlboro Ducati's Nicky Hayen will have a new crew chief for the Le Mans MotoGP this weekend in the shape of Ducati veteran Juan Martinez who is being drafted into the squad to free up Cristhian Pupulin, a data engineer who has been doubling up in the role.

Martinez last worked with the team in 2006 and the switch, says team boss Livio Suppo, will free up Pupulin to concentrate solely on on his job of analysing Hayden's datalogging after each session.

"I believe that with Cristhian more freed up from some of the normal work as crew chief he can use his expertise more and focus on really working on the issues I am having with the bike and help give us a better direction and give more info to the factory," said Hayden.

"So to fill his spot we will bring in Juan (Martnez), who has put up some solid results in MotoGP. He has already worked in Ducati and speaks good English and Italian so he was a good match.  I can’t say I don’t have enough good manpower behind me and it has been encouraging to see Ducati trying everything and working so hard to help get me in a situation to deliver. The team is very important in our sport but it is really up to the rider to do his part and make the difference, so I hope I can step up and do my part soon!”

Suppo added: "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.

"As well as changing the structure of the team we have some electronic updates and Cristhian Pupulin will be able to completely dedicate his time to the important role of co-ordination, which we need to continue to develop the GP9. It is a welcome return for Juan, who worked with us in 2006 and we are sure he can quickly settle back in to life at Ducati Marlboro Team.”