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Former MotoGP race-winner Andrea Iannone will make a surprise one-off comeback to the world championship for this weekend’s penultimate round of the season in Malaysia, the 35-year-old Italian gifted a one-race return by legendary compatriot Valentino Rossi after being banned for four years for doping. Every MotoGP qualifying, practice and race LIVE and ad-break free from lights out to the chequered flag. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today > Iannone, 35, won the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix for Ducati and finished on the podium 11 times in a 118-race MotoGP career from 2013-19, but tested positive for drostanolone, an anabolic steroid used for weight loss and physique enhancement that is on the list of prohibited substances of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), after the Malaysian Grand Prix of 2019.
MORE MOTOGP NEWS TALKING POINTS Bagnaia’s career first sets up two-horse race, Aussie had ‘nothing left’ RACE REPORT Reigning champ holds his nerve to take big win in Thailand World motorcycle racing’s governing body FIM initially banned Iannone for 18 months after Iannone claimed contaminated meat was to blame for the positive test, but Iannone’s appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) saw WADA re-examine Iannone’s evidence and successfully lobby CAS to extend the Italian’s ban to the maximum four years. With his ban served, Iannone returned to racing in the World Superbikes Championship for Ducati this season, finishing eighth overall and winning in Aragon in September before the production bike series concluded in Spain earlier this month. Iannone will take the place of regular VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, who will sit out the final two rounds of the MotoGP season in Malaysia and Valencia to undergo left shoulder surgery after a crash in Austria in August saw him miss one Grand Prix and ride under duress when he returned.
Di Giannantonio signed off his season before surgery with back-to-back fourth-place finishes in Australia and Thailand, his best results of a campaign when he sits in eighth place in the championship standings. Nicknamed ‘The Maniac’, Iannone won eight times in Moto2 from 2010-12 and was often a fierce rival to Marc Marquez before moving to MotoGP in 2013, spending four years with Ducati, two with Suzuki and his final 2019 season with Aprilia before his doping ban. His best MotoGP season came in 2015, when he finished fifth overall and took three podiums, including third place in the controversial Australian Grand Prix after a titanic scrap with Marquez, Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, and when he memorably head-butted a seagull that flew into his path early in the race.
Iannone’s return is likely to be a one-off, with Ducati likely to place regular test rider Michele Pirro into Di Giannantonio’s vacated seat for the final round in Valencia on November 15-17, with the single-day pre-season 2025 test taking place at the same venue two days after the 2024 campaign concludes..
