Scot gets Honda for Takahashi?

His struggled for too long on second rate machinery in the 250 class yet got some decent results under the circumstances, nice to see him get rewarded for his efforts

Good to see some loyalty from the Japanese, some of the Euros could learn a thing or two!

He's a hard charger but if I was a team owner I wouldn't want he to say he's worried about riding a MotoGP bike!

Max Well, Dani and Dovi both came up through the Honda team and both have remained loyal. Can't really apply it to any others as no other manufacturer has provided such a route of late, and even now, Honda don't anymore, officially, at least. Mores the shame.

If you'd been loyal to Aprilia, you'd have got stuck riding the Cube.

Another 'political' decision to keep a token Japanese in MotoGP. He's a nice enough guy I guess so good luck to him
Spies must be grinding his teeth now... another year in AMA for him? Maybe he should switch to WSBK.

Talk about a token Japanese. Since Shinya is going bye bye they had to get someone to represent them. But its sad when a 3time AMA champ gets passed over for a Japanese rookie with no 800cc experience.

MotoGP politics really sucks. Spies will get the Yamaha Italia Ride vacated by Corser. I hope we does well in WSBK and he will get his chance in 2010.

Ben wanted too much money to race MotoGP....that is the only thing that makes sense after his performance on the Suzuki IMHO. No real market need for additional American faces ... esp. with their economy tanking.

Apparently, you do *not* have to give credit where credit is due.

I agree, Spies probably brought it upon himself. Others are prepared to ride almost for free (Ant West).

Takahashi has run well on that Honda and Scot run a good team so who knows. One thing is for sure though - I'd rather see him in MotoGP than Nakano ( i quite like Shinya but he's had his shot )and we were not going to see a season with no Japamese riders.
Don't know what the deal is with JiR though. They clearly have the money to run a bike and they say that Honda has agreed to lease them one so whats going on there?
Or have I missed something (quite possible)

JIR and Scot both thought they had rights to field a RCV next season. Gianluca Montiron from JIR says he has it in writing but it apparently is worth zilch as Honda told him in September he won't get a bike. His plan was to field Spies
Scot were so clever to suggest Yuki Takahashi and Honda granted them the bike.

Montiron in the meantim says that if Honda will not give him a machine he will leave MotoGP,
an option he seams to have is to switch to Aprilia in WSBK and work with Biaggi.

Considering that Montiron's JIR team (when it was Konica-Minolta) pretty much sucked the talent out of both Tamada and Nakano, I think Honda made the right choice by giving the bike to Team Scot.

Tamada's big mistake was not sticking with the Bridgestones when he switched to Konica-Minolta...I recall reading in Sport Rider (Jap bike mag) that he made the request to be on the same tires as Rossi & unfortunately for him, the rest is history. Within a span of a couple of years, he was once one of the most promising talents in HRC's stable & now, a washed up ex-MotoGP refugee languishing on an uncompetitive Kawasaki in World Superbike.