Michele Pirro won the 2004 125cc European Championship in 2004, after which he joined the World Championship, scoring points in his 125cc 2005 campaign. The Italian spent four seasons away, during which time he finished fifth in the WSS series in 2010, before he joined the Moto2™ World Championship with the experienced Gresini team full time in 2011. He finished the season with an emotional win at the last round of the year in Valencia, an instrumental point in the team’s decision to continue racing following the loss of their much-beloved rider in the premier class, Marco Simoncelli. Pirro was at the helm of the Gresini Team’s MotoGP™ CRT project, riding their FTR MGP12 Honda bike for his first taste of the premier class. After a year with Gresini he joined Ducati as a test rider and made a number of wildcard appearances as well as being the main replacement rider. In 2016 he filled in for the injured Danilo Petrucci in the Octo Pramac Yakhnich squad aboard the GP15. Remaining with the Borgo Panigale factory as a test rider, Pirro wildcarded once more at Mugello in 2017 and took a stunning second row start, backing up his pace in the race with a top ten finish. In 2018 there were more wildcard appearances in Misano, Sepang and Valencia, with a P4 in the latter seeing him narrowly miss out on a podium. There were three more on-track appearances for Pirro in 2019, once again at Mugello, Misano and Valencia, before standing in for the injured Francesco Bagnaia at the Austrian double in 2020. Pirro continued to wildcard in 2021 and 2022, while at the 2023 Amercias GP, he stepped in to replace injured Enea Bastianini in the factory team.