Mir, the 2020 MotoGP world champion, has been out of action since breaking his ankle in an opening-lap crash at the Austrian Grand Prix in August.
Sitting out the Misano round, Mir attempted to ride at Aragon but withdrew after Saturday and sat out last weekend’s Japanese GP too.
It was thought he would return for this weekend’s Thailand GP, but the recovery of his right ankle is taking longer than expected and he will now aim to be back on his Suzuki at the Australian GP in two weeks’ time.
According to reports in Spanish outlet AS, Mir will be replaced by ex-Ducati rider Petrucci.
Petrucci made his MotoGP debut in 2012 and rose from a back-of-the-grid seat at Ioda on a CRT-spec machine to the factory Ducati squad in 2019.
The Italian won twice in his tenure with Ducati before moving to Tech3 KTM for 2021.
But a difficult season and desire from KTM to field its own up-and-coming riders in Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez led to Petrucci losing his place on the MotoGP grid.
He remained with KTM for a maiden assault on the Dakar Rally, which yielded a stage win despite carrying injury into the event.
Danilo Petrucci, Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati NYC
Photo by: Brian J. Nelson
Petrucci had expected to continue with KTM to embark on a full rally raid programme in 2022, but this fell through and the Italian linked up with Ducati again to move to the MotoAmerica Superbike championship.
He won five races for the Warhorse Ducati squad aboard a Panigale V4 and took the championship battle down to the wire in his first season.
However, Petrucci came up just 20 points short of champion Jake Gagne on the Yamaha.
Petrucci was asked by Suzuki to replace Mir at the San Marino Grand Prix earlier this month, but he elected to focus on his MotoAmerica title battle instead.
Suzuki brought in occasional Moto2 starter Kazuki Watanabe as Mir’s stand-in at Misano, while test rider Takuya Tsuda was upgraded from wildcard status to fill in for Mir last weekend at Motegi.
Should Petrucci’s Suzuki outing at Buriram come to pass, it will mark the sixth different chassis he has ridden in his MotoGP career.
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