Fermin Aldeguer out of MotoGP season-opener, Gresini names replacement

Gresini Racing has announced that Fermin Aldeguer will miss the start of the 2026 MotoGP season as he continues to recover from a broken femur.

The Spaniard made his MotoGP debut last year with the satellite Ducati squad and had an impressive campaign.

He eased to top rookie honours on his 2024-spec Ducati, with the highlight of his year a sensational maiden victory at the Indonesian Grand Prix.

Remaining with Gresini for his second year in MotoGP, Fermin Aldeguer was tipped to become a more regular podium contender.

However, his pre-season preparations were dealt a massive blow in January when he suffered a crash at the Aspar Circuit in Spain while training and fractured his femur.

This cast his participation in the two winter tests and the opening round of the season in Thailand into significant doubt, given the timeline expected for a femur injury recovery.

He did miss the Sepang test, though his physiotherapist commented earlier this month that he couldn’t totally be ruled out to be in Thailand for the first race.

However, Gresini has announced that Aldeguer will miss next week’s Buriram pre-season test and the opening grand prix of the campaign.

He will be replaced by Ducati test rider Michele Pirro.

Pirro has typically been Ducati’s main option to fill in for an injured rider, though there was some doubt about how it would manage his workload in 2026.

With the 2027 regulations overhaul looming, Pirro is set to get stuck into developing the initial prototype of Ducati’s new bike in the coming months.

Ducati now has World Superbike star Nicolo Bulega on its books as a test rider for MotoGP, with the Italian making his racing debut at the final two rounds of 2025 in place of the injured Marc Marquez.

Bulega is set to help with 850cc testing later in the year.

Given his lack of MotoGP experience so far, he would have benefited from the extra bike time as Aldeguer’s replacement.

However, Bulega would not have been able to ride the bike before the start of the season, due to the World Superbike season-opener in Australia taking place at the same time as the Buriram test.

It marks the second year in a row that the entire full-time grid will not be present for the first round of the new season, following Jorge Martin’s injury woes in 2025.