Pramac's Francesco Guidotti leaving Ducati for KTM?

UPDATE: KTM has officially confirmed Mike Leitner's departure as MotoGP team manager.

Francesco Guidotti, Pramac Ducati's MotoGP team manager for nearly a decade, is set to join KTM next season, according to a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Guidotti previously worked for KTM in the 250cc class from 2006-2009 before returning to Aprilia, as team manager in WorldSBK, then moving to Pramac in 2012.

Aided by closer Ducati links and more competitive machinery, Guidotti has overseen the satellite team's rise from struggling to break into the top six in his first season to leading this year's world championship with Johann Zarco and claiming their first Ducati victory with Jorge Martin.

Guidotti's KTM arrival would naturally raise major doubts over the future of current race manager Mike Leitner.

Leitner made 57 grand prix starts as a 125cc rider before switching to technical roles, including two years at Ohlins before teaming up with Dani Pedrosa as crew chief in 2004.

Pedrosa won the title during both his 250cc seasons, then took Leitner with him to MotoGP with Repsol Honda in 2006. The Pedrosa-Leitner partnership brought 26 MotoGP wins and title runner-up on three occasions by the time the Austrian left at the end of 2014.

Leitner later began work on the brand new KTM MotoGP project, which made its race debut at the end of 2016. Team manager ever since, Leitner has seen the RC16 reach its first podium in 2018, then the breakthrough 2020 campaign which saw wins by Brad Binder (1) and Miguel Oliveira (2).

But that success meant the end of technical concessions and the factory suffered inconsistent form in 2021, a strong mid-season sandwiched by a tough start and finish.

Binder still finished sixth in the world championship, one place below the KTM best by Pol Espargaro in 2020, and the team celebrated a victory each for Oliveira and Binder.

However, the factory dropped from fourth to fifth in the constructors' standings and from third to sixth in the teams' championship.

Should Guidotti's move be confirmed (an announcement is expected at any time) he will be re-joining Fabiano Sterlacchini, who spent 17 years at Ducati, rising to a senior role alongside Gigi Dall’Igna, before a year out of the sport and then a return as KTM's MotoGP technical director earlier this year.

Guidotti's KTM deal would remove one more potential name from the list of candidates to become Suzuki team manager in 2022, while adding the new possibility of Leitner.