The 2011 MotoGP season will kick off with just 16 riders on Sunday night, after the Rizla Suzuki team was unable to find a replacement on time for Alvaro Bautista, who broke his left femur in a practice crash on Friday night.
Suzuki team members have spent a hectic 24 hours in their hunt for a replacement, exploring every possible option to put a rider on the grid. The first and obvious option was John Hopkins, but the American - and former Rizla Suzuki MotoGP rider was back in California, having flown out of Qatar a few days earlier. There simply was simply not enough time from Hopkins to travel physically from San Diego to Doha in time to qualify.
The next option that the team explored was taking a rider out of the Moto2 class. The two obvious choices were MZ's Ant West and Aleix Espargaro of the HP Pons team, both men having had recent experience on an 800cc MotoGP machine and with the Bridgestone tires. Espargaro declined the offer, as the Spaniard has title ambitions of his own, and did not feel he could afford to miss the first race of the season. West, on the other hand, was refused permission by MZ's team manager Martin Wimmer to ride, Wimmer claiming that West was needed to develop the bike.
Fabio Biliotti Wilf Billington Hartmut Bischoff Gastone Biscia Norman Black Kenny Blake John Blanchard
No comments:
Post a Comment