Yamaha Factory Racing's Ben Spies and Ducati Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing)

A Honda satellite option for Rossi is a long shot. The idea that Rossi would accept crumbs from the Honda table, riding a satellite bike of lower spec that those of Dani Pedrosa and rookie Marc Márquez, is extravagantly unlikely.

Although Honda's Livio Suppo seemed, at one point, to be sending Valentine cards to Valentino through the Italian press, but that was just sweet talk intended to divert attention from the unexpected retirement announcement of Casey Stoner. After the acrimonious separation between Honda and Rossi at the end of 2003, no one with any knowledge of the inner workings of HRC considered that there was any chance whatsoever of Rossi ever riding a factory Honda again.

But Rossi will have whatever he chooses -- he is bigger that the championship itself in Europe and Dorna knows that. Whether he stays with Ducati or goes to Yamaha will depend on whether he is convinced that it will not be same-old, same-old at Ducati now that Audi is in charge -- meaning he wants to see new faces among the technical team.

The word from Italy is that Ducati is planning to run a second team and are looking for a new face from Moto2, preferably Italian. That could mean Andrea Iannone, but Ducati are also rumored to be looking at Spain’s Pol Espargaró or Britain’s Scott Redding. Or they could go with satellite rider, Hector Barberá of Spain who has soldiered on with the 'GP-Zero' Ducati that was rejected by the factory riders.

With the Czech Cardion team, owned by the wealthy father of rider Karel Abraham, unlikely to lease Ducati machines for 2013, Ducati is thinking of running a second team of their own, possibly out of the Pramac team, to carry out parallel development.

Among other riders considered for this 'B-team' would be Danilo Petrucci, currently riding an Aprilia-powered CRT, or Davide Giugliano, although Giugliano is more likely to stay with Ducati in World SBK. (Giugliano and Petrucci finished first and second last year in the European Superstock Championship, run as an undercard event as part of the World SBK program.)

Coming tomorrow in Part 2: The rise and (temporary?) fall of the American GP dynasty. Is it possible there will be no Americans on works equipment in 2013?