HRC Vice President Shuei Nakamoto may have said, after confirming that Casey Stoner will be riding for Honda next year, “Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso who are performing very well and currently hold second and third positions in the 2010 World Championship” and “HRC hopes also to retain these two riders for next year – giving us what would be a truly formidable line-up,” but apparently Andrea Dovizioso has very little hope that he’s going to be retained as a factory rider next season unless some other rich sponsor shows up.
Repsol wants a Spanish rider and that means Dani Pedrosa and Livio Suppo wanted Casey Stoner and got him and that leaves the Italian rider, who isn’t considered as one of the aliens, but has been constant and has the approval of Honda engineers who believe that the Dovizioso is giving the right feedback on the development of the RC 212V, infact privateer LCR Honda is using Dovizioso’s development line instead of Pedrosa’s and Randy de Puniet was getting good results until his crash at Sachsenring.
While Honda doesn’t want to lose Dovizioso and has offered him a ride with Team Gresini (Fausto Gresini has however denied the negotiations) with full factory backing or if there’s the possibility that Lucio Cecchinello will be helped to form a two rider team that includes Dovizioso, however the Italian has another offer on the plate that comes from Herve Poncharal who has offered Dovizioso’s Ben Spies Yamaha Tech 3 ride next season.
Dovizioso will have to do some serious thinking about where he wants to go, since he’s always been a loyal Honda rider for almost all his racing career.