MotoGP Kawasaki out and some dire times ahead

[mx250]

Sources in the mainstream sports media in Italy are reporting that the on-again-off-again saga that is Kawasaki is sort of on again. According to both Tuttosport and Sportmediaset, Marco Melandri will be riding a privately run Kawasaki, in a team led by Michael Bartholemy. The deal is said to have been put together by Dorna, in the person of CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, who has been in constant negotiation with Kawasaki since the news broke.

Details of the deal are somewhere between sketchy and nonexistent, but the deal seems to be that Kawasaki will make all of the 2009-spec bikes available to Michael Bartholemy, and the Belgian team manager will field a single rider in the person of Marco Melandri. Shortly after the news broke that Kawasaki would be withdrawing from MotoGP, the factory said that it had enough bikes and parts to last approximately a quarter of a season, and so presumably, this would be enough to run a single rider for at least have a season, perhaps a little longer if the practice restrictions are pushed through as expected.

Finance for the project will most likely come from Dorna - presumably in fear of breaching their own contract with the FIM to field at least 18 riders for a world championship - possibly with some seed money from Kawasaki, to buy out their remaining contract, which committed them to race in MotoGP until 2011. Melandri would presumably be riding the 2009-spec bikes tested by Olivier Jacque in Australia during January, despite reports of poor reliability. And maintenance and - speculatively - engine development could be done by the French company Solution F, as reported by GPOne.com in January.

[Marc.com]

thats it convergence towards WSB is the end of the story....it sucks anyway

[Lozza]

Melandri reports on his blog that the will be sitting out 09. Italian press is somewhat excitable

[Marc.com]

I think finally it is the commercial issue, the same one that killed 2 strokes. That factories only make money off bikes they can sell you, so there getting scarcer by the minute support dollars have to go where they will sell the most replica racers.... Superbikes. I think Melandri and those guys also have the problem of getting the huge money they got in 2008 again this year.

[Tim754]

Thanks Marc, you seem to agree with my post back to the first page. about who will be next to move away from certain "events'

All of them ! So pick any one, facts are all auto mobile and motorcycle manufacturers are not selling even the stocks of new vehicles they have. NO sales = No cash, certainly not for now overrated bloated racing events that are steadily loosing lots of interest with the public around the world. Meaning it is becoming a waste of advertising money to support them.

[Marc.com]

Companies like Honda are busy laying people off. That means in Japan justifying to the labor department you really are in a serious financial state, racing programs and high paid foreigners don't get the smiley face when you are convincing the Government to approve your downsizing.