BarcelonaÀlex Rins and Joan Mir have run out of bikes for next season. Despite Suzuki’s good sporting momentum, the Japanese team has decided to unilaterally abandon the MotoGP World Championship at the end of the year. This is the third time that the Hamamatsu brand has decided to leave the top category of motorcycling. This time, however, it is one of the sweetest moments in its history. Dorna, the world rights management company, has reminded the top of the brand that its contract is until 2026 and that the decision to leave cannot be taken unilaterally. The future of the pilots and all the workers that Suzuki leaves without work is in the air.
The reasons for this farewell – unofficial, unofficial – are various, but the most important is economic. The team has been going through difficulties for years and if it is still alive it is thanks to the commitment of Toyota, which supports 5% of the company. It is precisely from this relationship that a conflict of interest may have arisen. The Japanese already have another brand associated with MotoGP, Yamaha, which has the current world champion, Fabio Quartararo. In this way, the firm would be the spearhead in the World Cup and Suzuki would have a different approach, out of competition and more associated with new technologies.
The MotoGP World Championship, then, faces one of the biggest challenges of recent years: Suzuki, who won the 2020 world title with Joan Mir, leaves at the end of the season. But Dorna has not yet bought that decision, which would leave the competition with two pits and a vacancy.
Movements in the paddock
“We are very happy with how Suzuki has worked,” Alex Rins told ARA before the start of the season. The year was presented as the great opportunity to consolidate Suzuki as one of the great brands in the World Cup. For Rins and Mir, moreover, it was the perfect time to step forward and get out of the mid-table positions to which they had been subscribed without pain or glory the previous year. “I learned a little from last year’s mistakes and we can be one of the favorites. We have the weapons,” said the Barcelona pilot. Since the traffic lights have been turned off this year, in fact, it has been like this. The new engine and mechanical improvements have made Suzuki a competitive bike, which is fighting for podiums, and has taken important steps. Now all this work is in jeopardy with the decision to stop participating in the World Cup from next year.
“We were already at the end of the negotiation of the new contract,” revealed Paco Sanchez after Suzuki’s sudden farewell to MotoGP. Joan Mir’s representative was surprised by the brand’s decision and confessed that when he tried to contact part of Suzuki’s decision-making body, he got no response.
Third goodbye: the final one?
This is not the first time Suzuki has started MotoGP. In 2011 he made the same decision with the newly renovated pilots due to the global economic crisis. It’s been seven years since he returned to the World Cup and now the brand manages one of the lowest budgets in the competition. However, this season he had landed in the box of the team Livio Suppo, the former director of Marc Márquez at Honda, in a move that augured a clear commitment to climb the ranks in the World Championship standings. Instead, in the midst of negotiations with its two current drivers to expand its contacts, Suzuki has put the brakes on and left.
The two boxes that are left free have many suitors. “Dorna receives a high level of interest from various official factories and independent teams looking to join the MotoGP grid, because this sport continues to be a global example of contested competition, innovation and entertainment, reaching hundreds of millions of fans around the world, “the World Cup promoter said in a statement. In fact, not only are new brands interested in becoming part of the top competition, but there are also teams looking for a new satellite team and two more bikes on the current grid.
