Last Monday Motorsport.com announced the bombshell news that Suzuki will leave the MotoGP World Championship at the end of this season, which leaves a gap on the queen class grid for next year.
In response to the information, the championship promoter, Dorna Sports , warned the Hamamtsu team in a statement that they cannot leave “unilaterally”, threatened them with a fine in financial compensation and boasted that, after the information came out, In just 24 hours, multiple manufacturers and teams had been interested in taking the place of the home of the big S in the paddock.
One of the first names that emerged was that of one of the most solid and professional structures in the Moto3 championship, Leopard Racing , which in recent years had tried to get a place in the premier class without success.
This Thursday, the team based in Luxembourg has been at the Circuit de Barcelona carrying out, together with other Moto3 and Moto2 teams, a private test, and in the same pitlane of the circuit, the technical director of the structure, Christian Lundberg , attended to Motorsport.com .
“We are going to see how the situation evolves, there are contracts involved and I don’t think Suzuki can leave (from MotoGP) just like that, because he has a signed contract until 2026. We’ll see, but if a place is released and God willing that they give it to us, we will be very happy,” said Lundberg.
“The entire paddock knows that we are absolutely interested and that we would try to take that step, but from there it is still a long way to go,” he tried to calm down.
In such a short period of time it is very difficult for a new manufacturer to get involved in the project of creating a structure and making a bike from scratch to compete in MotoGP. This facilitates the options of private teams, supported by existing manufacturers.
“Today the houses have several brands, the PIERER Mobility (KTM) group has several brands, Aprilia ( Piaggio Group ), also, the only brands are the Japanese and Ducati. Increasing the number of manufacturers is a vision that Dorna may have, but I don’t think that is the case, I think that equal opportunities must be given to the current manufacturers, in the end a team that has only two motorcycles plays at a disadvantage. Aprilia is very interested in having four bikes, KTM already has them, Ducati has a lot (8), Honda four… I think the most logical thing would be to allow the manufacturer that today only has two bikes, in this case Aprilia, to have two more. It would be the most logical.”
That means that Leopard is already working on the basis of making the leap to MotoGP and doing it in a private structure with Aprilia bikes.
“We have already made it clear for a long time that we want to enter MotoGP and now Dorna has the ball on the roof and let’s see if things work out. The problem is that I don’t know if we are the first or the fourth on the list, because we have spoken, but maybe there are other people behind us who, without saying anything, have privately expressed their desire to be there, from what we have read. in the Dorna statement, so the last word is with them.”
But speculating a bit on the possibility of Leopard Racing’s entry into MotoGP being given the green light, the associated brand would be none other than Aprilia.
“I think the only option would be to do it with Aprilia because, in my opinion, Dorna has to reward in one way or another the only constructor on the grid that only has two bikes, and nowadays all the bikes are very competitive. So it would be very good for us to work with Aprilia, we are also a semi-Italian team and it would be easier than working with the Japanese, I think it would be the best option”, settled the Leopard boss.
