Antonio Cairoli confirmed he plans to race the Ducati in the US Motocross series this summer, but they have to get a certain amount of bikes built with the production rule before he can race there! Cairoli also said he would like to do the British GP at Matterley Basin as it is one of his favourite tracks, and it would a well-timed warm-up before he heads to the States in for a couple of races (and maybe more).
With Justin Barcia and Eli Tomac linked to Ducati it will be a good time for them to see the performance of the machine too on US soil with the nine-time world champ, showing what the Ducati can do.
Cairoli told us: “My plan was to do more racing. We didn’t exactly plan which or what, but around some time I want to race more races, let’s say maybe another two or three rounds. Maybe the US if we can find a good compromise because the bike needs to be on sale first there, otherwise you cannot race. So the bike around the end of June will be in the market in the US. After that, we can see which race we can maybe attend and maybe some more and one more MXGP, I would love to do Matterley Basin, it’s one of my favorite tracks. At the moment, we have no real plan, but I will do more racing, yeah.”
On how competitive the Ducati now is and how different it is from when he raced it at Arnhem MXGP last year Cairoli commented: “It’s a completely different bike. Now, it’s very rideable before and the sand was almost impossible to ride, so I was really, really struggling a lot. We had some prototype parts on and we didn’t really ride sand with that before, so we just go there because I really want to see which direction to take with the bike. On one side it was good because I struggled a lot, but I understand which direction will go with the bike and after that, I take a good direction and now today (in Arco MXGP), it was a very competitive bike. I think if you have a fit rider, a fast rider, you can easily be on the podium today.”
Get the full interview below:
