Gresini<\/a> reported that he had fractured his femur and was set to undergo immediate surgery on the injury in Barcelona.<\/p>\nLast year\u2019s top MotoGP rookie had a successful operation over the weekend, though Gresini is yet to release any details on his recovery timeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operation was successful,\u201d the team said in a brief statement.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNow it\u2019s time to rest. We will provide further information in the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Femur injuries can take several months to fully heal, with Aldeguer unlikely to be present at the start of the 2026 season in Thailand at the beginning of March.<\/p>\n
Ducati test rider Michele Pirro was riding at the Aspar circuit when Aldeguer crashed, and told GPOne: \u201cIt was cold, but the track was in good condition. The circumstances aren\u2019t entirely clear yet, but it was a bad crash.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope he recovers soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who could Ducati replace Fermin Aldeguer with?<\/p>\n
Ducati has limited options to field as a replacement for Aldeguer, with Pirro the most obvious candidate.<\/p>\n
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However, with the veteran Italian test rider set to begin work in the coming months on Ducati\u2019s 2027 challenger, the brand may not want to risk him getting injured in a race.<\/p>\n
Ducati could look to call up Nicolo Bulega from World Superbikes.<\/p>\n
The Italian made his debut on the GP25 last season in Portugal and Valencia as Marc Marquez\u2019s injury replacement, scoring points in both outings.<\/p>\n
Bulega is due to have an expanded role with Ducati in 2026 as a test rider for the 2027 project.<\/p>\n
In theory, Bulega could test Aldeguer\u2019s GP25 at Sepang at the beginning of February, though would miss the Buriram test due to the World Superbike opener in Australia.<\/p>\n
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He would be able to race in Thailand and the following Brazilian Grand Prix, however, but would have to miss Austin due to World Superbikes in Portugal.<\/p>\n
According to reports last year, Bulega isn\u2019t set to begin riding the 2027 Ducati until the summer, but more miles on current machinery – particularly in a race setting – would prove useful to him in his testing role.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gresini MotoGP race winner Fermin Aldeguer is currently recovering in hospital following \u201csuccessful\u201d surgery on a broken femur…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,12370,8455,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-408514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fermin-aldeguer","11":"tag-gresini-racing-motogp","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}