When Yamaha announced that they would be pulling out their factory team from the World Superbike championship at the end of the season, World Supersport Championship leaders Yamaha ParkinGO stepped up and offered to take over the team, however it seems that team manager Giuliano Rovelli’s request has been turned down.
Apparently Yamaha is in negotiations with some Anglo-South African marketing agency willing to manage the entire operation, lock, stock and barrel for the 2012 and 2013 seasons and the decision deadline is tomorrow Wednesday September 21st.
Rovelli, is a proven manager and his team that switched last season from Triumph to Yamaha and riders Chaz Davies and Luca Scassa have won seven of the nine races so far and Davies could be celebrating the championship title this Sunday at Imola, is at loss of why Yamaha won’t consider his offer.
Speaking to Motosprint.
it Rovelli said, “Our plan for next year’s World Superbike championship was to field Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies, who we believe is an emerging talent, but Laurens Klein Koerkamp (Yamaha Motor Europe racing manager) told us they were already in talks with this South African group that I read about in the newspapers.
He told us that in our business plan regarding Superbikes there were errors and then he wished me luck with another manufacturer.
Too bad, we are in contact with another manufacturer, but it seemed logical and natural that we make this switch to Superbikes with Yamaha.
” Rovelli continued saying that his ParkinGP business is booming and their switch to World Superbikes has the backing of other important sponsors, and believes that Koerkamp is making the same mistake that he did when he shut down Yamaha’s Supersport effort at the end of 2009.
They ran out of money, while his team is on the verge of taking the world title on half the budget that the Yamaha factory team needed.
The ParkinGO manager also believes they could repeat themselves in WSBK’s proving that it isn’t necessary to squander millions to get great results, and this according Rovelli, is one of the reasons that his talks with Yamaha fell through.
The team principal also added that he is now looking into other options, including MotoGP.