After being a protagonist throughout its debut season — barely missing the title with Leandro Mercado and collecting 3 wins and six podiums overall — the Aruba.it Racing - Junior Team renews the challenge in STK1000, pairing Michael Ruben Rinaldi with Mike Jones.

Jones, born in Australia in 1994 and a pupil of Troy Bayliss, honed his riding skills in the Australian Superbike Championship, which he won in 2015. This year, Jones debuted successfully in both WorldSBK and MotoGP with Ducati, managing to score points in both series despite taking part to only three rounds in total. Despite his relative experience on European tracks — he participated in only nine races in the European Stock 600 between 2012 and 2013 — Jones is determined to collect strong results since the very start of the season. 

Rinaldi, sixth at the end of his debut year in STK1000 with two podiums to his tally, is eager to make the most of the experience gained on the Panigale R and take advantage of the continuity at the technical level to race constantly at the front.

“I’m very excited”, explains Jones. “For me, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to compete with an extremely professional team on a bike as competitive as the Ducati Panigale R, with which I already have some good experience. I want to make the most of this opportunity to improve my current skills while racing against strong competitors and learning new circuits.”

“I’m very happy to have the opportunity to race another season with the Aruba.it Racing – Junior Team”, said Rinaldi. “We gained plenty of experience in 2016, and now we have to show we’ve learned from our mistakes and we’ve matured in order to consistently score the results worthy of our potential. I’ve always had a great chemistry with the whole team, and it’s important to feel their trust. Also, the continuity at the technical level represents an advantage.”