LCR Honda press release:

Less than 24 hours before the start of the first practice session of the 2009 World Championship, the LCR Honda MotoGP team is pleased to announce the Title Sponsor which will adorn Randy de Puniet’s Honda RC212V in the Grand Prix of Qatar after local authorities advised that the use of the PLAYBOY brand in the Middle Eastern territory would be frowned upon.

The historic radio network “Radio Monte Carlo” which is well known worldwide, will display his logo on the LCR Honda MotoGP Team bikes for the opening GP of the season. The famous Radio Monte Carlo Last joyned the Team last year already as Sponsor Supplier at the Hospitality Unit.

Luigi Frateschi, RMC Network General Manager: “It’s our first time in the racing competitions and we are happy to start this new adventure with LCR Team which is one of HRC Honda reference Teams. We are proud to combine our brand to this machine and we will do our best to support and promote Randy and the Team through the music and our job”.

Lucio Cecchinello, LCR Honda MotoGP Team CEO: “We are very satisfied to work with Radio Monte Carlo which is a “communication” leader since a long time. This new important Championship will start in a few hours and, once again, we will do our best to satisfy our supporters including Radio Monte Carlo which will be in “pole position” on our bikes”.

Thanks to the state-of-the-art lightning system, the opening GP of the season will be held in Qatar at Losail track for the second time and the race will get underway at 23:00 local time.

The LCR Honda MotoGP Team rider Randy De Puniet has been in fine form for the whole winter getting good lap times on this track some weeks ago.

De Puniet looks to be comfortable with his Bridgestone-shod Honda RC212V at the “desert” circuit thanks to the good job he made in Jerez de la Frontera during the last pre season official test.

De Puniet: “I feel excited for this first race of the season. However we are not at 100% yet because winter time testing has been reduced and we missed some track time. By the way my last performance here during the test was quite good but I feel a bit worrried about the weather conditions. The temperature is higher now and this is positive but the sky is more cloudy We came here from Spain with a good base set up and we already fixed some adjustments to test during the practices”.