Gibernau and Ducati to discuss future

The Spaniard completed his three-day run on the GP9 in Italy today with a best time of one minute 51.7 seconds - which is six tenths slower than Marco Melandri's fastest lap in the Italian Grand Prix on the GP8.

Although Gibernau's return to action has prompted speculation about a serious MotoGP comeback, nothing will be finalised until he holds talks with Ducati in the next few weeks.

"This has been a really wonderful gift from Ducati," said Gibernau about his run. "It has been a real pleasure to get back on a MotoGP bike and over the past couple of days I've had first hand experience of what a tough job Vitto (Guareschi, Ducati test rider) has and realised just how good he is at it.

"Now I want to go home and reflect on how I feel about things. Then, together with Ducati, we'll see if want to arrange another test."

Ducati's Filippo Preziosi added: "I want to say thanks to Sete, who over the past two days has helped us get through a huge amount of work on the GP9 alongside the irreplaceable Vitto.

"Despite a long period of inactivity (Sete had not ridden a race bike since October 2006) he's adapted quickly to the unusual role of test rider and put himself through a lot of the toil that we usually reserve for Vitto

"Now we'll sit down with Sete and evaluate whether there'll be another opportunity to test together."