Elías wants to put things right on home territory

The next round of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship is a special one for several participants in the three Grand Prix categories, with San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Toni Elías amongst a group of riders who are on home ground in Catalunya.

Previewing the sixth round of the season this week at the official presentation of the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya Elìas acknowledged his modest start to the year on his return to Fausto Gresini’s team and cited the Barcelona visit as the chance to kick-start his campaign.

Although his best finish thus far has been ninth place (achieved at Qatar and Jerez) and he was down in a disappointing 14th at Mugello, Elías believes the competitiveness of his Honda RC212V package is at a decent level as he approaches his home race.

Asked for his thoughts ahead of his most important GP of the year he replied, “I think we are ready. We come here having found some improvements but without having shown it on track in terms of results. We have had a bit of bad luck so far, so we will keep working and pushing hard. Hopefully it will be at Montmeló where things change and we start to get the kind of results we are looking for.”

“We have had a few problems and it is hard to fight against them to put things right but we are giving it all we can and we are getting better. We are working on our issues one by one and reducing them gradually and we just need to make sure we aren't affected by bad luck or unexpected problems and hopefully at Montmeló we will get our first strong result of the year, as we are getting close. The fans there are very important and they always give us a push in terms of motivation, so we need to take advantage of that and get a good finish which we can build on.”