MotoGP team Ducati confirmed Sunday that reigning world champion Valentino Rossi will join them at the end of the season.
The two-year deal between the Italian and the Italian manufacturer brings to an end his hugely successful association with Yamaha, which he joined in 2004.
"We are delighted that Valentino Rossi will be with us from 2011. He is a paragon of excellence in the world of motorcycling," Ducati Motor Holding president Gabriele Del Torchio said.
Rossi has won four MotoGP world titles with the Japanese manufacturer since joining from Honda in 2004, and the 31-year-old acknowledged leaving the team had brought a special relationship to a close.
"It is very difficult to explain in just a few words what my relationship with Yamaha has been in these past seven years," said Rossi, who finished fifth in Sunday's Czech Grand Prix, having recently made a comeback after suffering a broken leg earlier in the summer.
"Many things have changed since that far-off time in 2004, but especially 'she,’ my M1, has changed.
"At that time she was a poor middle-grid position MotoGP bike, derided by most of the riders and the MotoGP workers.
"Now, after having helped her to grow and improve, you can see her smiling in her garage, courted and admired, treated as the 'top of the class.'"
Rossi's move follows his Australian rival Casey Stoner's
decision to join Honda from Ducati in 2011.
