Ducati are looking forward to their best weekend’s of the season at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, with the US market being particularly important to the Italian outlet and the round 12 race being the homeland for their American champion Nicky Hayden.

Last year, racing for former factory Honda, Hayden claimed a massive stage finish after he placed second in the hurricaned MotoGP event at The Brickyard and the 2006 World Champion comments on Indy stating, “This is probably the race I look forward to most as it’s just three hours from my house and MotoGP now is becoming very popular in the States. Last year it was a great weekend for me, the crowd was great and Indy did a great job in organising their first race and made us proud of it. I would love to have another good weekend like that one.

The Kentuckian competitor adds “I like the track itself even though it’s quite flat. The most challenging thing is that it has different kinds of asphalt on different parts of the track so it will be a hard job to find out where there is grip and to find the best set-up. Hopefully we won’t have another hurricane, the weather should be fine, so we will see how it goes.”

Meanwhile, Hayden’s substitute colleague following the absence of Casey Stoner, rookie Mika Kallio, is set to make his US event debut this weekend. The minor sessions do not race at Laguna Seca and Kallio skipped the Californian MotoGP event due to health issues earlier in the year, while last season he was part of the 250cc class which wasnt able to perform at Indy due to weather conditions.

The Finnish competitor states, “Even though I came here last year the race itself was cancelled because of the hurricane. Anyway, I can’t say I don’t know the track because we did contest every practice session, including the warm-up. It’s not exactly my favourite kind of track but it’s ok. There are three different kinds of asphalt and that makes it really tricky to get a set-up. Anyway, we’ll do our best and I’d like to be competing within the top five or six.”

Referencing Stoner’s ability to come back to Australia as he continues to heal from his injuries, Ducati’s MotoGP Project boss Livio Suppo says, “The news from Casey is positive, he is getting stronger and I’m sure he will be back at full strength at Estoril. As far Indy is concerned, I think everything is in place for both Nicky and Mika to have a good weekend. At Brno they were both lapping at a similar pace to the guys who finished on the podium. Nicky will have extra motivation here at his home circuit and for Mika it will be his second race in factory colours and I hope he feels more comfortable.”