Andrea Iannone says goodbye to Suzuki at the end of the season
The future of many MotoGP riders will be announced in the next few weeks, between the Mugello round this weekend and the Montmeló race in two-week’s time, but today Andrea Iannone announced that he won’t be riding for Suzuki from 2019 onwards.
The Italian rider spoke with the press during media day in Mugello, and this was an announcement everyone was already expecting because Suzuki and Joan Mir – who currently runs in Moto2 with Marc VDS – should already have a contract signed for 2019 and 2020, leaving Iannone without possibility to remain with the Japanese team.
Iannone also confirmed he will race for another “factory”, which probably means that he already secured a place on a factory team.
Ducati, Honda and Aprilia are the only factory teams which are still looking for a second rider.
Honda is a long shot for Andrea Iannone, and no one seems to think the “Maniac” will end up racing alongside Marc Marquez on the Repsol Honda team.
As for Ducati, the Italian team is really interested in Andrea Iannone and their managers already spoke about having him back on the team. But nowadays Ducati changed its intentions and are now locked in negotiations with Danilo Petrucci, who rides for Ducati on the Pramac team.
So, right now it seems that Iannone is more likely to sign a new deal for two years with the Gresini Aprilia team, a return to an Italian machine, a bike built in Noale which hasn’t obtained the results expected but is getting better all the time.
Will Andrea Iannone be able to extract the best from the Aprilia RS-GP if he ideed signs with Aprilia?