Michele Pirro will replace the injured Loris Baz at the forthcoming Catalunya around, Avintia has confirmed.

Baz broke his foot when he was taken down at the first corner of last Sunday's Italian round and, following surgery, has been sidelined until Assen at the end of next month.

Ducati test rider Pirro finished tenth as a wild-card at Mugello and will now be making his fifth start of the season in Barcelona.

"First of all I want to wish a speedy recovery to Loris," declared Avintia team manager Agust?n Escobar. "We are looking forward to see him back in our garage, because is part of our family and we'll be supporting him for his come back, hopefully in Assen.

"And I want to say big thanks you to Ducati for letting us Michele Pirro to replace Loris in the next race. We couldn't find a better rider and I think that will be very important that he rides our bike in Barcelona.

"He is a fast rider and he knows all the Ducati bikes. It will be interesting to work together and I'm sure that he will give some valuable information tour engineers to improve the bike set up and the electronics."

Having raced a factory GP16 at Mugello, Pirro will be switching to Baz's 14.2 model next weekend. His best result so far this year is eighth in Texas, where he was replacing the injured Danilo Petrucci at the Pramac team.