Just released on Ducati.com

NICKY HAYDEN TO JOIN CASEY STONER AT DUCATI MOTOGP TEAM


Ducati Corse hereby announces that Nicky Hayden will join its factory MotoGP team for 2009. The 27-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, will line up alongside Casey Stoner and will make his debut on the Desmosedici GP9 on the 27th October in a test immediately following the Valencia Grand Prix.

Hayden arrives at Ducati after six years in MotoGP with Honda, the highlight coming in 2006 when he was crowned World Champion. His aggressive riding style and amenable character have made him an extremely popular rider - both on the track and off it.

"We are really happy to have Nicky join us," declared Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Corse CEO and Ducati Motor Holding Product Director. "We are certain that his never-say-die attitude, riding style and character will be great additions to our team in 2009. I would like to thank HRC for allowing Nicky to start testing our bike immediately after the Valencia Grand Prix. I would also like to thank Marco Melandri for his professionalism during a difficult year, which was below all our expectations. Unfortunately his feeling with the Desmosedici was never good enough to allow him to ride as well as he can. We wish him all the best for the future."

you're about 15 hours behind the rest of us.

http://ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=7384.msg193814#msg193814

Since Derby's gonna be a smartass and tell ya it's a derby, I might as well try to do it a little more gently.

Thanks!  We caught the official announcement, but didn't start a new thread about it.  The discussion has been ongoing in the Silly Season thread.  Check it out, mang.  

Edit:  Crap!!!  He's too f'n fast.  Dammit, derb.  That's just not normal. 

Knew there was an existing topic, but figured some people might not want to churn through 15 - 16 pages to find something official. also figured it would stop a number of other threads also announcing the same thing.

Knew I should have put a
"derby response from Derby in 3....2....1.."