Andrea Iannone’s return to competition after a four-year suspension is going well, making him one of the riders to watch in the Superbike World Championship. He has already made it to the podium and is frequently among the top five.
His performances have been good enough to spark speculation about a possible return to MotoGP in the future. The Italian was in the premier class with Aprilia when, at the end of 2019, there was the controversial positive doping test – which he always justified by consuming contaminated food.
Iannone is connected to Ducati through Team GoEleven. How does the Borgo Panigale manufacturer see a potential return of the rider to MotoGP? Davide Tardozzi, team manager, considers it unlikely, as he told GPOne.com: ‘Considering his age, Andrea should try to do well in SBK. For sure MotoGP is on his mind, but I find it hard to believe that he could get there’.
That said, Tardozzi highlighted that Iannone has talent and was once feared by… Marc Márquez: ‘However, he is a natural talent, and I want to remind you of something Márquez told me a few years ago: Iannone was the only rider that Marc feared in Moto2, and Andrea earned the respect of an eight-time world champion’.
In 2011 and 2012, Iannone and Márquez were rivals in the fight for the Moto2 title – a category the Italian reached a year before the Spaniard. They had also competed in the 125cc class before, but in that category, Iannone was never consistently in the fight for the top positions unlike Márquez. Later, they were rivals in MotoGP from 2013 to 2019.