Team Gresini turns the page with Michele Pirro

Team San Carlo Honda Gresini has chosen. The driver who will join Alvaro Bautista will be Michele Pirro, triumphant in the last Moto2 race in Valencia with a Moriwaki. The next edition of MotoGP is enriched with a new young protagonist. He will be responsible for the team's second bike.

Why did the choice fall on the champion from San Giovanni Rotondo? The team manager himself explains it Fausto Gresini: simply because Pirro “has certified that it has the technical and sporting qualities to be able to grow further and we believe that in this new category, the Crt (Claiming rule team), can be a protagonist”. And his passport will certainly have had an impact: “We are an Italian team – winks Gresini – and for us Italianness is important".

For the 25-year-old driver from Puglia the choice was not so simple. He doesn't hide the fact that he considered the idea of ​​saying "no thanks" to dedicate himself to another Moto2 season (for him a ninth place with 84 points resulting from a victory and a third place on the Silverstone circuit), "but the growing confidence shown by Fausto Gresini at the end of the season left me in no doubt about the choice I should have made".

One way or another, it will take over Marco Simoncelli (official Honda HRC), the young rider from Romagna who died following an accident on the Sepang circuit. More generally, Pirro will be the third Italian centaur in MotoGP together with Valentino Rossi e Andrea Dovizioso.