Frenchman Randy de Puniet will switch from LCR Honda to Pramac Ducati for 2011.

Frenchman Randy de Puniet has been confirmed for the Pramac Racing team to contest next year’s MotoGP World Championship season with Ducati.

De Puniet, who starred during 2010 with LCR Honda, will join Italian veteran Loris Capirossi in an all-new line-up for the official Ducati sattelite outfit, set to debut in Tuesday’s test session at Valencia.

“I am incredibly excited about this new adventure that will begin next year,” de Puniet said. “I would like to thank the Pramac Racing team principal Paolo Campinoti for this great opportunity and the confidence that he has placed in me.

“I have worked with Italian teams in the past and I’m happy to continue for the next year. I would like to thank one by one the LCR team and Lucio Cecchinello with whom I shared wonderful years and I believe that they were my family and now I join a new family thanks to Pramac. I am looking forward to meet my Ducati!”

Capinoti is equally excited to have de Puniet onboard.

“We are very pleased to have closed a deal with one of the most experienced riders and one of most talented rider of the MotoGP World Championship,” he commented. “For Randy will be a debut riding a Ducati, but we are sure that he will be able to go fast since the tests carried out on the track Tuesday and Wednesday.

“We all know Randy and we know the enormous value as a fighter rider, that have seen him fight with riders who were riding an official bike. He was often the first rider of the independent team and he have often finished the race before some official riders.

“We are confident that thanks to his quality, next year we’ll have fun on all the tracks taking some satisfactions. With Randy and Loris we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of Pramac in the MotoGP and to have such a strong pair of riders and this will be real honor for us. I would like to thank our partners who have follow in an enthusiastically way our choice.”

Replacing de Puniet in the LCR Honda team will be Moto2 World Champion Toni Elias.