Yesterday at Mugello was the scene of Nicky Hayden’s test on on the Ducati 1199 Panigale.
The American rider who is leaving the Italian manufacturer at the the end of this season, was offered an opportunity to ride the machine by his soon-to-be ex employers in order to convince him to stay with the company, albeit riding in World Superbikes.
Ducati’s Paolo Ciabatti previously said that Hayden had received a very ‘important economic offer’ from them, and the test they he would be doing would be ‘proper one’ with with members of his MotoGP squad also present to help him out.
According to GPone.
com, Hayden yesterday did around thirty laps on the bike, but he also suffered a small and harmless crash.
At the moment there is no news if Hayden will test the Panigale again or if he will accept Ducati’s offer, as he has several other interesting offers on the table.
The Kentucky Kid has been linked to ride for LCR Honda on Honda’s new production racer, but he has also been tipped to be in talks Aspar’s MotoGP team for an ART, and also with Forward Racing, but the American was tracked down via a training run map (@MapMyRun) that he uploaded, to be very near Noale, the home of Aprilia, before the Mugello test.