Bombshell: Suzuki to Field a Factory Supported Team in WSBK in 2019?

Speedweek is reporting that the Hawk Racing/Buildbase Suzuki team is planning on stepping onto the world stage in 2019 with Bradley Ray.

They haven't mentioned a second rider yet, but it seems that they'll make the move with support from Yoshimura and some cash from Hamamatsu.

'Toe, does this earn your stamp of approval??

http://www.speedweek.com/sbk/news/127720/So-will-Suzuki-in-der-Superbike-WM-2019-antreten.html

 

Bradley Ray is a phenom.

Suzuki could have been there this year. Except the guy putting it together had some personal um, legal challenges.

 

Whose slots would they be taking over?

 

Is WSBK "full"?

 

Oh, damn. We talking about WSBK? The mofo said "bombshell!" That's false advertising.

 

With Suzuki kicking in (a reported) € 500,000 Suzuki got off cheap.

Not they just need to find another €6M to € 9M to do it right.

 

So now we know why they couldn't afford Lorenzo, and had to sign Mir for cheaper.

 

I'm not convinced that Suzuki even spends that in MotoGP; cut them some slack here

 

€500K wouldn't pay for Whore-gays airline tickets for a year.

 

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking this was a real bombshell about MotoGP.

 

Vds implosion killed all my hopes for that for at least another year. Plus, I read the article earlier.

 

So you really think they need €9 million to race superbikes? Your CFO must be terrified of you.

 

Maybe not 9M, but half a mil seems very little to me to call a team "Factory supported" at that level. At that price, the team owner should have told Suzuki he would just leave the brand stickers on the gas tank lol

 

This is in addition to Yoshimura backing. To me, it seems like they're kicking this money in to subsidize some of the overhead for Hawk Racing, not just tossing them half a million and calling them a factory team.

As the article says, Hawk is one of four Factory Superbike teams for Suzuki worldwide. Judging by the successes they've had with those four teams, Suzuki actually takes those somewhat seriously.

 

Just going off what I "heard" Kawasaki was reported to be spending. Salaries, travel, hospitality, bikes, parts, trucks and all that shit.

No idea on how true some of the numbers thrown around but that wouldn't pay honda's bills for 1/3rd of a motogp season.

 

As long as it goes better than the last WSBK effort for Suzuki.

 

Yeah, I remember that debacle too. It was "Yoshimura supported" too.

I guess Hawk racing has a lot more time on their hands now that Michael Dunlop left them in a lurch for Tyco BMW.

 

$500k isn’t even a good budget for starting a MotoAmerica team. Spies wanted something like $3mil secured before things even got started.

Even just a minor crash, can cost $25-$50k to repair. $500k won’t go far at all.

Hopefully they have some good additional sponsors.

 

Don't forget the team dinners with mandatory hookers and blow.

 

How much does each recall cost?