Sweet baby Jesus, here we go again. We are only into the fifth round of the World Superbike Championship, and Effenbert Liberty Racing is having its first (and hopefully last) kerfuffle. Announcing that “the adventure of the team in the WSBK 2013 is not of our further interest” in a press release today, Effenbert Liberty Racing announced that it will no longer race in World Superbike.
Explaining that the team was unable to promote the interests of its sponsors and partners through WSBK racing, the Liberty Racing will skip the Donington Park round, which would have been only the fourth round of the season for the squad, having skipped the opening round at Phillip Island, and starting its season at Motorland Aragon.
The news is perhaps not that surprising, considering the tumultuous season that Liberty Racing had last season. Seeing Sylvain Guintoli win at Assen, Liberty Racing would eventually implode after the wet-weather non-race at Monza.
Title sponsor Effenbert would leave the team after the Italian round, and Liberty Racing also eventually parted ways with all of its three remaining riders as well, making some very public and curious statements along the way.
This all makes today’s news an unfortunate specter of reality, especially for rider Mark Aitchison, who for the second-time this year has been left high and dry by his team, but an announcement of this nature was a predictable outcome from the second the Czech team announced its return this season. The full press release is below.
The LIBERTY RACING TEAM EFFENBERT thanks Dorna WSBK Organization Srl that allowed to the team to be present at the start to the 2013 season, and try to recover the substantial value of the investment in marketing and promotional activities carried out in the Superbike World Championship from 2008 until today , first in sponsorships and then with direct participation.
Whereas, as noted, the main goal of our team is the use of racing according to the parameters necessary for the promotion of the brand of our main sponsor and our other partners, we have found, on our opinion, some difficulties during these races in pursuing this targets.
Anyway, we believe that the continuation of the adventure of the team in the WSBK 2013 is not of our further interest, as the sponsors and partners have decided to direct the promotional investment in other channels at this time achieve the value economic effort / visibility more appropriate to the volume of investments.
In the next days will be communicated in detail the operational programs. The Team takes this opportunity to thank publicly all those who have shared this adventure and all those who have spoken and written of us, whether good or bad.
Source: Liberty Racing
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