Nicky Hayden gets new crew chief.

Juan Martinez, crew chief for double MotoGP title runner-up Sete Gibernau while at Gresini Honda, will return to the Ducati Marlboro Team - where he moved with Gibernau in 2006 - as crew chief for the factory's new signing Nicky Hayden.

The change is the most visible part of a restructuring at the factory Ducati team, aimed at helping Hayden close the gap to team-mate and fellow former MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner.

The reshuffle means that the team's track engineer Cristhian Pupulin - who has doubled up as crew chief to Loris Capirossi, Marco Melandri and Hayden since 2006 - will now spend more time purely analysing the data collected by all of the Ducati riders.

Hayden had hinted at communication problems with his new team, while accidents and set-up problems also contributed to the American claiming a best qualifying and race result of just twelfth from the first three rounds.

Stoner meanwhile has finished first, fourth and third for second in the standings behind only Valentino Rossi. The next best Ducati rider is presently Pramac rookie Mika Kallio, although the Finn is just eleventh in the points.

Gibernau is presently 15th in the championship for the Francisco Hernando team, with Hayden 17th and Kallio's team-mate Niccolo Canepa 18th and last.

Ducati will also change its approach to the set-up of electronics, with the aim of 'improving the consistency of the bike and facilitating the process of the riders' adaptation to it' after Hayden and the three satellite Ducati riders all failed to match their pre-season test form at Jerez.

"We have a bit of new electronic management and team structure that I think should help me and all the Ducati riders," said Hayden. "I believe that with Cristhian more freed up from some of the normal work as crew chief he can use his expertise more and focus on really working on the issues I am having with the bike and help give us a better direction and give more info to the factory.

"So to fill his spot we will bring in Juan [Martnez], who has put up some solid results in MotoGP. He has already worked in Ducati and speaks good English and Italian so he was a good match.

"I can't say I don't have enough good manpower behind me and it has been encouraging to see Ducati trying everything and working so hard to help get me in a situation to deliver.

"The team is very important in our sport but it is really up to the rider to do his part and make the difference, so I hope I can step up and do my part soon!" admitted the 2006 world champion.

"After the race at Jerez, which was fantastic for Casey but very difficult for Nicky, we had a few meetings to analyse our technical and organisational structure, with the goal of improving the all-round performances of our riders," added Ducati MotoGP Project director Livio Suppo.

"We came to the conclusion that after starting the season with not all of the Ducati riders able to match their positive form in winter testing, maybe this is the right time to introduce some new technical ideas in terms of the electronics as well as boosting our track presence in order to provide all of the Ducati riders with better support.

"The GP9 is still a very young machine and for the first time in MotoGP we have five bikes on the grid. For these two reasons we have decided that we need to concentrate more on co-ordinating all the data that we gather at each race in order to provide more direction for development.

"As well as changing the structure of the team we have some electronic updates and Cristhian Pupulin will be able to completely dedicate his time to the important role of co-ordination, which we need to continue to develop the GP9. It is a welcome return for Juan [Martinez], who worked with us in 2006 and we are sure he can quickly settle back in to life at Ducati Marlboro Team," said Suppo.

Martinez was crew chief for Anthony West at Kawasaki last season.

Triple World Superbike champion and MotoGP race winner Troy Bayliss is due to test the GP9 this week at Mugello.

Capirossi is the only Ducati rider other than Stoner to win a race since 2007, courtesy of a wet/dry victory in that season's Japanese Grand Prix.