MOTOGP » Gresini confirms Elias, factory Honda

Good move by Honda

Nice move for Toni but people I speak to are becoming more excited about the 2009 WSB season.
New manufacturers and more to come, a full grid and a host of great talents, some in their twilight years and some, stars of the future. Sure, MotoGP is populated with world champions but the racing is becoming strung out and relatively predictable.
WSB possesses a number of champions and raw talent from one class or another and you can bet, because of the regulations, that they will be competing hard with each other and banging fairings - see Haga/Bayliss? They're not girlie, these superbike riders. Can't wait!

Nice to see Honda fielding the factory backed bikes but I can think of a lot of people I personally would've given the rides to over De Angelis and Elias. Nakano or Spies. Perhaps even Ant West. In my humble little opinion Elias is one of the msot over-rated riders in the paddock.

Maybe this is a ploy to make Pedrosa raise his game for HRC?

The pressure is on for 2009...

He soon lives under the shadow of both Elias, Dovi and ex-team mate Hayden all potentially beating him!

I think Honda know this, and will replace him with Dovi as lead rider (IF), Dovi has an incredible year and Pedrosa falls by the wayside.

Elias has Bridgestone experience, he's been on them for years. Pedrosa is a newcomer to BS, so is Dovi next year.
Granted, Nakano has a lot of Bridgestone experience as well but is nearing the end of his career.
By running three similar worksbikes alongside eachtother they have a chance to gather a lot of data, all can benefit from that.

3rd Factor Bike for LCR....

Elias Riding it???....

Surely it would have been a better idea for the team to have tried to recruit the services of Marco Melandri (I know there were rumours) or Alvaro Bautista (or maybe even simoncelli if they feel brave).

My feeling is that a factory Honda with Elias riding wont do too much...

I find the comments on Pedrosa being threatened by Elias's new factory ride funny . . . Dani and Toni have been racing each other for many years, since 2001 I believe: they went through the 125s, 250s and then MotoGP together and Dani has kept beating Toni consistently race after race and season after season. Just compare how many race wins, podiums, world championships each one of them has . . . Toni is a very aggressive, spectacular, and fast rider, but so far has always lacked consistency and has had a tendency to make to make errors (outbreaking himself, making excessively optimistic passing attempts and running wide or out of the track, etc.). I look forward to next year though.

So let me get this right, is Alex De Angelis also on a "factory" bike, or is the
2nd rider for Gresini going to be on a lower spec customer bike?

"So let me get this right, is Alex De Angelis also on a "factory" bike"

Nope. Will suck to be De Angelis next year.

Poor guy. Having a satellite machine isn't the worst thing in the world, unless you see your teammates factory spec beasty sitting 5 feet away from you in the garage every time you glance over.

Unfortunately for Alex motorsport is as results driven as any sport, and to be rewarded he just needs to start getting the runs on the board.

Elias is pretty fast but erratic and not consistent. Pedrosa's only worries is if Elias crashes into him which is always a possibility. I think that Melandri would have been a better fit for the Gresini team but he went to Kawi.