Rumour: Rossi wants a Honda?
Rumours from Italy suggest Rossi is looking for an independent Honda team in 2012
THE rumours have been spreading from Italy that Valentino Rossi wants an escape from the struggles at Ducati and a return to Honda.
The MotoGP holiday period has been awash with rumours that Rossi will relinquish his attempts at winning on a Ducati as the Italian has approached Honda for his own independent entry for 2012.
A possible scenario purported was a supposed swap deal between Rossi and Marco Simoncelli and Ducati to Gresini.
The Italian media sourced the information from the current factory Honda rider's - vocal - personal manager Carlo Pernat and the news was further fanned by former Gresini rider Marco Melandri, who said that Rossi had been in talks with Fausto Gresini about taking the factory-Honda place - something the Italian has now back-tracked on saying that he was 'kidding'.
The question is whether Honda would have Rossi back, after leaving the manufacturer with bad-blood to move to Yamaha. However, HRC vice-president Shuhei Nakamoto said in 2009 that Honda would be happy to take him back. The other block for the switch back to a Honda would be whether Ducati would allow Rossi to end his two-year contract early.
As renowned journalist Dennis Noyes observed on Twitter crazier things have happened, he noted that no-one expected Eddie Lawson to go to Honda in the late 80s.
Will Rossi go? Probably not, there is a greater chance that this is a way to get Ducati to abandon the carbon chassis and get the changes he requires.
