Rizla Suzuki likely to announce its departure from MotoGP class – MotoGP news
Rizla Suzuki team manager Paul Denning is close to officially announcing the halt of Suzuki operations in MotoGP class.
The Japanese manufacturer was given a deadline by Dorna chief, Carmelo Ezpeleta to take the decision about the 2012 season.
The team did not declare its step out from the MotoGP world championship. However, Denning did send an email to his crew to mention that the operations will be ended by the end of season.
While talking to Motorcyclenews.com, team manager Paul Denning said, “I have spoken to Carmelo and updated him and I was told by Suzuki that they need about a week to make an official announcement. The longer the situation goes on then clearly it becomes
more difficult in every sense, so it certainly isn’t positive that we hadn’t got a fixed position from last Friday.”
Though Suzuki team has improved a lot during the 2011 season, but still it lacked to score any wins with Alvaro Bautista putting in his full effort.
The Spanish rider got injured during the season’s inaugural race weekend at Qatar. He fractured his left femur. Bautista was sidelined for couple of races.
British Superbike rider and former MotoGP rider, John Hopkins was called to race as a substitute for Bautista at the Estoril event.
Since then the team started to gradually improve its machine. The Suzuki GSV-R was tuned through every race weekend and eventually became a rider-bike combination for top five slots.
The team was facing financial crises since it switched to race with a single rider in the 2011 season. During the 2010 season, the team raced with Loris Capirossi and Bautista.
While entering the 2011 season only Bautista was left as a sole representative for the English-based Japanese team.
During the last few races, it was also rumoured that Suzuki might continue in the 2012 season with an 800cc machine, whereas others will be racing on 1000cc prototypes.
Suzuki’s departure from the championship leaves only three manufacturers, Honda, Yamaha and Ducati. The new CRT regulation is the only hope to dense the grid.
Ezpeleta made a decision to increase the number of riders with the help of CRT regulations. It is expected that the introduction of new category will shoot the number of riders to 22.
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