After the debacle of a round at Monza, the Effenbert-Liberty Racing Team had some choice words regarding how the World Superbike Championship was being handled last weekend. Surely having something to do with the fact that Effenbert racer Sylvain Guintoli qualified on the pole position, the Czech squad had to watch as the French rider’s bike died on the sighting lap for Race 2. Gaining momentum from its win at Assen, the guys at Effenbert-Liberty Racing were surely frustrated by the events in Italy, though things have seemingly escalated from there.
First stating that the team would only minimally participate at the Donington Park round, i.e. not bring a full hospitality service, and would reconsider its involvement in the rest of the WSBK season, the words from the Ducati squad have cooled to some degree, but continue to be rather ominous. With Infront Sports & Media, the rights holder to World Superbike, publicly saying it has deferred the matter to its legal council, Liberty Racing released another statement, noticeably absent of its title sponsor’s name, that confirmed its previous statements about Donington Park.
While everything is being read between the lines, the consensus of rumors in the WSBK media is that Effenbert has dropped its support of the Liberty Racing team, which would surely mean the withdrawal of the four-rider team from World Superbike. While Liberty’s fourth rider, Brett McCormick, has already been sidelined with a broken neck this season, the absence of the team’s other three riders would surely leave a gap in the ranks of WSBK.
Effenbert Liberty Racing Statement May 6th, 2012:
“The clear impression is that the WSBK has endured one of its worst days, disrespect for the public, for those who, like Team Effenbert, invests and for sports in general. It is unacceptable that the fundamental decisions of the day are been taken with such a superficiality not even worthy of a single brand championship of scooters. At the end it is clear that the WSBK is in the hands of a little number of team and riders. Other categories, also titled, would never ran into such a farce, a fact proven by the competitions of the other classes without major incident and without complaint.Considering all this situations, the team Effenbert Liberty’s management will reflect about its racing future.”
Effenbert Liberty Racing Statement May 8th, 2012:
“The Liberty Racing Team would like to communicate that its own riders Sylvain Guintoli, Jakub Smrž and Maxime Berger supported by their technical staff, will take part in the Europe GP, 5th round of the Superbike World Championship, that will be held at Donington Park this weekend.”
Source: Liberty Racing; Photo: WSBK
what a mess Monza was last weekend… Can’t help but think Silvan really got screwed with the rain delays and riders refusing to ride… The only question i have is why wasn’t he running a starter motor like the other 1198 on the grid??
I thought it was more of the computers these bikes have, which if are not given time to reset will sometimes cause issues in performance, running and even starting. The fact is, they waited that long; they should have just paused and let everyone come back.
It was just too much back and forth and the GO!!! My .02
The truth in the matter, Infront should have consulted the Effenbert-Liberty Racing Team as whether or not to run, since they had a pilot in pole position. Instead, they consulted the teams and pilots that were at steak of losing ground in the championship, to the pilots and teams that were on the front row.
In fact, the the teams and pilots of on the front row, should have had more of a say as whether or not to run, if not all of the the participants…
Of course Biaggi and Aprilia are going to say not to race, they were having a bad weekend anyway. How convenient that the situation worked in their favour…
The bottom line is that if a rider does not want to race and race control thinks that it is safe to race then those riders should simply roll off the track. Plain and simple. Now, if race control sends the riders out in conditions that are dangerous then that is on them. Judging from the amount of bikes going down by simply touching their brake lever I would venture to guess that conditions where not safe. It is really easy to make comments on blogs when it is not your life, limb and families’ livelihood on the line. I race but will not go out unless the conditions are safe but then again I don’t make my living racing. In fact there is a track in our series that is quite unsafe with a concrete barricade 30 feet from the end of a 180mph straight that I simply will not race even under perfect conditions.
I am a huge Sylvan fan, so I thought the call to start the race after he had engine issues on a SIGHTING lap, was totally bogus. They they compounded it by porking Sykes out of full points.
They should have waited for Sylvan and let the race run past half distance for full point. There is no way in hell the conditions were worse they they were at the Nürburgring last year.
Poor Tommy Sykes and Sylvan, they have both had such brilliant starts to the season.