Daijiro Kato
Gresini held the management role for the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini MotoGP team. His team has won two world championships with Daijiro Kato winning the 2001 250cc world championship, and Toni Elías winning the 2010 Moto2 world championship. Kato died in hospital two weeks after crashing during the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix on 6 April 2003. On 23 October 2011, the Gresini team suffered another loss when rider Marco Simoncelli died soon after an accident at the Malaysian Grand Prix. The team's other rider at the time was Hiroshi Aoyama.