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MOTOGP: Dorna Prepares ‘Bailout’ for Kawasaki
Written by: Dennis Noyes   
01/04/2009
Borrego Springs, CA
 
Marco Melandri (Photo: Kawasaki Racing) ยป More Photos

In a desperate, last-minute attempt to keep the MotoGP grid size at 19 riders, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta is reportedly offering to subsidize a sort of 'bailout' of Kawasaki by contributing through a Spanish team to the costs of leasing, maintaining, and running the Kawasaki factory team. Jorge Martinez (“Aspar”), the former 80cc and 125cc World Champion who runs Aprilia teams in both 125 and 250, would take over the organization of the Kawasaki effort.

Martinez has acknowledged that he was contacted by Ezpeleta and that he is studying the possibility. His first reaction was that it would be difficult to find additional sponsorship for a team featuring an Italian (Marco Melandri) and an American (John Hopkins). An earlier attempt to obtain, again with Dorna's encouragement, a third Kawasaki to be run by the Aspar structure
failed when Kawasaki insisted on inserting Shinya Nakano as the rider. Aspar would only consider a Spanish rider, and among the riders under consideration at that time were Álex Debon (who won two GPs and finished fourth in the 2008 World 250 Championship), Fonsi Nieto (who won one race and finished sixth in the 2008 World Superbike Championship), and Ángel Rodriguez (the 2008 Spanish Supersport Champion).

Kawasaki rejected all three Spaniards and Aspar rejected Nakano, saying, “I respect Nakano as a top rider but I cannot attract Spanish sponsorship for a Japanese rider.”

Now, in a strange twist, the fate of Kawasaki’s racing investment (they say they have already spent six million dollars on their 2009 machines) seems to rest in the hands of the team they (Kawasaki) rejected.


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