Aleix Espargaro

There have been a host of riders who have tried to ride the Ducati Desmosedici, and apart from Casey Stoner, they have been at best only moderately successful. This struggle, combined with Casey Stoner's unexpected illness, has prompted Ducati to mount a search for someone - anyone - else who showed any aptitude at all for riding the GP9.

So when Aleix Espargaro was given the opportunity to replace Mika Kallio at Pramac Ducati, who had in turn been promoted to the factory Ducati team to take the place of Casey Stoner, nothing much was expected. Espargaro had been given the ride mostly because he was available, the Spaniard and brother of 125cc star Pol finding himself out of a 250 ride and forced to take a ride in the Spanish CEV championship while waiting on better times. But Espargaro impressed immediately. With no experience of MotoGP, the Spaniard finished 13th at Indianapolis and 11th at Misano, and surprised the paddock even more by setting the 5th fastest race lap behind Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso.