Dutch World Superbike star Michael Van Der Mark looks likely stand in for the injured Karel Abraham at this weekend’s Assen MotoGP round.

The youngster, who stood on the WSBK podium at the Circuit Van Drenthe a couple of months ago, will make his premier class debut on the Open class RC213V-RS in front of a home crowd starting from free practice on Thursday, if strong rumours are true

Van Der Mark has no WSBK commitments until the middle of July when he will travel to America for the Laguna Seca round so the mini-break in the Superbike series' calendar provides an ideal time to make his MotoGP bow.

But he will have to contend with potentially dubious weather on top of coping with Bridgestone tyres and different electronics, among other things, on the MotoGP Honda compared to his Pata-backed Fireblade.