Ducati Team rider Cal Crutchlow has confirmed that he will stay with the Italian factory in 2015, where he will continue riding alongside Andrea Dovizioso.

At the World Ducati Week 2014 event at Misano on Saturday Crutchlow attended a press conference alongside the likes of Paolo Ciabatti (MotoGP Project Director) and Luigi Dall'Igna (Ducati Corse General Manager).

Following his double arm surgery this week, Crutchlow ended speculation that he could be set to ride elsewhere next year confirming that he will stay with the Borgo Panigale based manufacturer in 2015.

The British rider commented,

“Andrea (Dovizioso) is having a great season but we need to keep working hard in the second half of the year. I am certain that they are working hard in the factory in Italy. We hope to keep getting closer to the front guys. Marc (Marquez) seems like he is from another planet but Andrea (Iannone) beat him in the past.”

Dall’Igna, meanwhile, added,

“We have made some progress but not enough and we need to work even harder in the second half of the season. We have a new fairing coming soon and we’ll have a new chassis at Aragon. Our goal, which will be difficult to achieve before the end of the year but not impossible, is to reduce the gap to the front to 10 seconds.”

For his part, Ciabatti confirmed Ducati’s rider line-up stating,

“Dovizioso has renewed his contract this morning, Cal has a contract with us for next season and he will continue in the ‘official’ team next year. Iannone has done even better than we expected and we want him to stay with us. We want to offer him better technical support and next week we should be able to decide how to do it, what the contract will be and the exact technical package.”

Iannone himself added,

“The results in the first half of the year help with the motivation to keep working hard. I’m a Ducati rider right now and even though I’m young I would like to stay with them throughout my career in MotoGP.”



.