Victory is not enough: Suzuki will leave MotoGP

This was reaffirmed when Suzuki informed members of the Suzuki ECSTAR team yesterday that it would leave the MotoGP series later this season, according to numerous media reports with journalists in the MotoGP squad. Suzuki is leaving despite having signed a five-year commitment to the series and recently hired experienced team manager Livio Supo to carry out the program.

Suzuki is not leaving due to lack of success. The Japanese brand returned to MotoGP in 2011 and won both the Racers ’Championship and the 2020 Designers’ Championship along with Joan Mir. The company recently celebrated its 500th Grand Prix podium thanks to Alex Rince, who is currently ranked third in the MotoGP Championship.

But, as many racing teams have learned before, winning races does not guarantee payment of bills.

The solution seems to be part of an overall reduction in Suzuki. The company’s presence is declining in many arenas, not just in racing. Suzuki is not present at the World Superbike Championship, and Suzuki has almost disappeared from MotoAmerica Superbike, despite a long history of winning the championship in a previous partnership with Yoshimura Racing. John Ulrich, founder of Team Hammer, which now runs the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team in the MotoAmerica Medallia Superbike class, said Suzuki executives told him they were going to leave the U.S. national series if Hamer’s team didn’t take over the program in Yoshimura.

Apart from racing, the company’s cuts can be seen in several new models that have been introduced in recent years. If once Suzuki was part of the “big four” of Japanese motorcycle manufacturers in the United States, Suzuki is now behind some European companies that were previously much smaller.

Suzuki stopped selling cars in the US ten years ago.

Back at MotoGP, this news suddenly makes Rince and Mir valuable free agents that other teams have already considered, but thought they might be unavailable. It will also leave Yamaha as the last factory to produce a MotoGP racing bike with a four-wheel drive, and it will open up two places in the network for another team. This morning, MotoGP organizer Dorna Sports issued a statement saying it had “officially contacted the factory to remind them that the terms of their contract to participate in MotoGP races do not allow them to make that decision unilaterally.” The statement added that other teams have already expressed interest in these places.

The show will continue. But it seems without Suzuki.