I'd like to see James Ellison do well
But, I just can't see it. He's not as good as Crutchlow for a start, so, to be honest, what's the point? His career doesn't need the negative aspects that not achieving much will bring especially when he could've stayed in Blightly and had a pretty solid end to his career. WSB might have been more realistic. The point to a race is to win it, the taking part bit is for those that don't win very often. Obviously not everyone can win but to turn up knowing you can't win isn't in the spirit of the "competition".
MotoGP should be all the fastest lads around who have proved it by winning stuff on the way. Ideally relevant stuff like the next class championship down the scale or regular wins, podiums and the like in other championships.
As I said before the quality of the riders is as much an issue as the cost of the bike and that people don't see the link is baffling. Casey Stoner is fast on a good bike so to beat him he'll either have to suffer issues that reduce either element or be beaten by a faster rider and/or better bike. That's the game, James Ellison wouldn't have featured in my formula before to beat Stoner, Lorenzo, Pedrosa, Rossi and co and now that he's in the championship he definitely doesn't, unless many crazy things happen on the way.
So, like I say, what's the point? For those of us who advocate a bit of youth I'd have gone for Bradley Smith long before James Ellison and probably Scott Redding and maybe even Gino. I'd put Chaz Davies on it before Ellison too and a Laverty. The more I think the more I reckon Ellison would just about make the top 10 British candidates for a CRT MotoGP ride based on talent.
