2012 MotoGP
For 2012 MotoGP, the Italian snack company San Carlo will again back Fausto Gresini’s team, which will include rider Marco Simoncelli.
San Carlo, which has backed Gresini’s team for the past seven years, has signed a one-year extension.
The San Carlo MotoGP team will field two riders, but the man joining Simoncelli has yet to be confirmed; as for Simoncelli’s current teammate, 250cc Champion Hiroshi Aoyama, the Japanese rider has yet to sign for 2012 MotoGP.
And the 2012 MotoGP Championship should be stronger than previous years, considering the San Carlo Honda Gresini team will have backing from the factory Honda Racing Corporation.
Fausto Gresini says: "Being able to announce that San Carlo will be at our side again for the 2012 season is a source of great satisfaction. It was important to give continuity to our project with Marco Simoncelli and we are proud to be able to share our high expectations for 2012 with San Carlo.
"Next season’s project for the San Carlo Honda Gresini Team, with the strong backing and support of HRC, is a very ambitious one and with Marco Simoncelli riding the factory RC213V there will be a lot of excitement.
"These past six years of collaboration has strengthened respect for the President Alberto Vitaloni and the values shared by my team and San Carlo are increasingly deep rooted."
Alberto Vitaloni (San Carlo President) says: "Fausto Gresini, his team and the San Carlo brand are linked by a deep mutual respect for the professionalism and passion that employees and riders bring to their work and to every challenge.
"For this reason we have decided to support them for a seventh consecutive year. I believe that in a moment like this are companies like ours have to give a strong signal to the market, to believe in their own history and its continuity.
"In 2011 San Carlo turned 75 and it is a family business. We have many similarities to the Gresini staff and riders in terms of our philosophy and character, in having the courage to make radical decisions, to go against the grain, in the tenacity to never give up when faced with difficulties and challenges and the creativity to invent something new to achieve our goals. It will be an intense season and there will be a lot of emotion, we’re sure about that."