American Honda’s Miguel Duhamel has been tabbed as a possible fill-in for Gresini Racing Honda’s injured Toni Elias at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, July 20-22. Elias broke his leg in a crash during practice at the Dutch TT, last weekend at Assen, and with less than three weeks before the American round of the MotoGP World Championship veteran Duhamel has been nominated to pilot the team’s Bridgestone-shod RC212V around the historic Monterey circuit. But the deal is not 100% done yet, according to Duhamel. “Well, I haven’t talked to Gresini,” Duhamel said, when asked by Roadracingworld.com if the deal to ride the Gresini Honda at Laguna Seca was finalized. “I talked to some people at American Honda, Chuck [Miller, Racing Teams Manager] and some other people. You know how these things go. They can change pretty quick. “It’s a great honor for me to be able to ride that bike, to go out there and do it. I think it would be a great show for the fans. There’s a lot more good than negatives coming out of it. But to answer your question, until I get on the bike, I don’t know. Right now, it’s looking pretty good. “And I want to take this opportunity to thank the team for giving me this opportunity. And like I said, hopefully it will come through, but I think it’s like 90% done right now. “Also I would like to take this opportunity to wish a speedy recovery to Toni (Elias). Unfortunately, I have experience with the [broken] femur. Hopefully, he will get back quick. And it doesn’t slow you down that much, so don’t worry about it, Toni. (laughs) “You’re getting a pretty early bird. I wish I could tell you we signed papers and everything and so on and so forth. To me, it looks like it’s about 90% done. So hopefully it will come completely true soon, but as far as I know I’m going to get to ride the bike. I’m really looking forward to it.” Asked if he would also be able to also race his Dunlop-equipped American Honda CBR1000RR Superbike at Laguna Seca, Duhamel said, “Yeah, there’s no problem with that. You’re talking to a guy who won three races in one day. (laughs) I used to do that quite regularly. No, that should be no problem.” Duhamel finished 12th in the 1992 500cc Grand Prix World Championship (his only season racing in the Grand Prix World Championships), racing in a field that included Wayne Rainey, Mick Doohan, John Kocinski, Kevin Schwantz, Doug Chandler, Wayne Gardner, Alex Criville, Eddie Lawson, Randy Mamola and Alex Barros. That year, Duhamel took nine top-10 finishes with a best of fifth at Interlagos, in Brazil. Gresini Honda has not named a replacement for Elias for the German Grand Prix, July 13-15 at Sachsenring. Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Roger Hayden is also expected to race in both the AMA and MotoGP races at Laguna Seca, but Hayden has not been confirmed.