I for one hope Nikki is on it this year. he deserves a better year, and he will fight for it.
The only thing that concerns me is that although he has to adjust and get used to the bike coming from a honda etc.... that is exactly what Casey did and in his very first test on a Duke he was the fastest.
So i kinda dont buy the it takes time to adjust etc... as you can be pretty confident that if Rossi was to jump on the Duke he would be in the top 4 no worries straight up.
We do know from Fillipos comments that Nikki is brave...he was quoted as saying something like Hayden keeps the gas open when the bike is doing some really violent shaking...even more so than Casey. Apparently Ducatti knew that within 30 mins that Melandri was going to be no good on the bike, iv not heard the same about Hayden so here is hoping.