In an action packed race on Sunday at the Motegi circuit, HRC test rider Shinichi Ito finished a proud thirteenth.
Ito rode a strong race in front of his home crowd at Motegi, and took this opportunity as training for testing the 1000cc machine to be ridden by HRC factory riders in 2012. HRC would like to thank Ito san and congratulate him on his performance in the Japanese Grand Prix.
Shinichi Ito:
"First of all, I'd like to say a very big thank you to Honda. They gave me this possibility to race a MotoGP machine again and through this I hope I brought courage to the victims of the East Japan disaster. My target for this race was to simply take the checkered flag and I achieved this. Considering that today was no ordinary race, I'm very happy with the result! I had a physical problem after Friday's crash, so the first part of the race was difficult for me. I reminded myself the main reason for participating and I knew I could not give up. After that, in the last part I managed faster laps and I'm happy with this. The experience of today will contribute towards my training for the 1000 machine test. At this moment I don't have any plans to participate in another Motorcycle race, but if I take part in another race category, such as GT300 Japanese Car Championship, I would like to do so with a Honda Machine".
source: motogp official website
