De Puniet completes Pramac line up

From motogp.com

Pramac Racing has confirmed that French rider Randy de Puniet will ride for the team next season in the MotoGP World Championship, after an agreement between the two parties was announced at Valencia on Saturday.

The 29-year-old, who now has five premier class seasons under his belt, will join the Italian team alongside Loris Capirossi for the 2011 campaign and will test the Desmosedici in the Official MotoGP Test on Tuesday and Wednesday at Valencia.

“Randy is a really good talent and I believe his experience will be very helpful in developing the bike,” said Pramac Technical Director Fabiano Sterlacchini. “I’m quite sure his riding style will suit our bike so I’m really optimistic that we’ll have a really good season.”

Combined with Loris Capirossi, whose acquisition was announced last week, Sterlacchini is confident the duo will help advance the team’s fortunes in 2011.

“I’m very optimistic about next season because we have two experienced and talented riders in Loris and Randy, and with this bike you do have to change your riding style a lot from a 250cc bike," he said. "We saw this year with Mika (Kallio) and Aleix (Espargaró) that their experience was only in 250cc and their first MotoGP bike was the Ducati. They struggled to find the right tuning and it was difficult sometimes to find a compromise.

“With Loris I think it will be easier because he rode this bike in 2007. The bike has developed since then but it is more or less the same.”