Simoncelli Re-Signs With Gresini

Henny Ray Abrams | September 27, 2011

MotoGP star Marco Simoncelli will return to the San Carlo Honda team in 2012, the team announced today.Simoncelli, who is in his second year in the MotoGP class, inked a one-year deal and will again get factory support from HRC.”To be wearing the colors of Team San Carlo Honda Gresini for another year and riding a Honda RC213V gives me a lot of satisfaction,” Simoncelli said in a team release. “To be kept on as part of project that Honda HRC are so supportive of in collaboration with Team San Carlo Honda Gresini gives me a lot of confidence and all the motivation I need to show that I can be amongst the best in MotoGP again. 2012 will be an important season for me and I want to give all those people who have believed in this project plenty to get excited about.”Team owner Fausto Gresini is also pleased to have his star rider back in the fold for next year.”I am really happy to announce that Marco will be back with Team San Carlo Honda Gresini in 2012,” Gresini said. “Over the past two years together we have been able to appreciate Marco’s qualities as a rider, as a man and as an extroverted communicator, which made us keen to continue our collaboration. Obviously, in order to make this possible we needed a lot of effort from our sponsors, who have shown such belief in this project and I am grateful to them. HRC are going to offer a general level of support that will be very important as well as making a factory RC213V factory available to Marco. All this gives us great pride and is a testament to the close relationship we have built with the Japanese factory over 15 fruitful years of partnership. Marco’s huge determination will give us all a lot of motivation ahead of what promises to be an exciting new season.”

 

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.